Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso; they needed models. This is especially true of writing.

Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all.

If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen - editors, agents and publishers - whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards not so high.

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.

Motivation clears the head faster than a nasal spray.

Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and they will jump overboard to get away.