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Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a different person.

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Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.

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Editors are licensed to be curious.

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Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper....more

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Vulnerability has a strength of its own.

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One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.

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

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Mind in language are inseparable. If we violate our language we violate ourselves.

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Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that y...more

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Beware, then, of the long word that's no better than the short word: "assistance" (help), "numerous" (many), "facilitate" (ease), "Individual" (man or...more

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Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the a...more

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Don't annoy your readers by over-explaining--by telling them something they already know or can figure out. Try not to use words like "surprisingly," ...more

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Good writing is good writing, whatever form it takes and whatever we call it.

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But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long words that could ...more

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The final advantage is the same that applies in every other competitive venture. If you would like to write better than everyone else, you have to wan...more