The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.

Less is more.

Writing is thinking on paper.

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

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.

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

Thought is action in rehearsal.

A clear sentence is no accident.

If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

History is a better guide than good intentions.

Always put people first, for without them, there is no organization

Dreams free us from normality. Daydreams, especially, take us somewhere between the real world and the dream world.

If you want to know if someone is lying to you, start by living a truthful life. Once you live in the truth, you will not be easily deceived.

Life, whether in this world or any other, is the sum of our attainment, our experience, our character. The conditions are secondary. In what other world shall we be more surely than we are here?

Anybody who'd expend energy preventing people from hearing music seems not to understand the basic principal of making music in the first place. It's so antithetical to being a musician.

My visual quest is driven by a desire to create a universe capable of supporting feelings and ideas.

I have done more for black people than any other person in the nation, North or South.

Love always leaves a significant mark.