“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.”

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

“Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.”

“There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on.”

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.”

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

“A schoolchild should be taught grammar--for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.”