I’ve also discovered that knowledge is not as compartmented as I thought it was. It’s not a hundred different rooms inhabited by strangers; it’s all … - William Zinsser

The strong emotional content of the book was supplied by what I got other people to say. I didn’t need to wax emotional or patriotic. Beware of waxing. If you’re writing about places that are sacred or meaningful, leave the waxing to someone else.

As George Orwell pointed out in “Politics and the English Language,” an essay written in 1946 but often cited during the wars in Cambodia, Vietnam and Iraq, “political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. . . . Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

Remember this as a consolation 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.