Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do
Writing is thinking on paper.
Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft; we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.
Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.
Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly---about any subject at all.
Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.
Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.
Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.
Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.
Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.
Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing; it's the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?
Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.
A clear sentence is no accident.
Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do.
You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?
My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.
If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.
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