“I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.”

“The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.”

“The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.”

“I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular.”

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”

“[Writers] should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.”

“Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.”