Not every oak has to be gnarled. - William Zinsser

In his monthly column in Natural History magazine and in books like The Panda’s Thumb I’ve found myself caught up in the riddles of evolution and the miracles of the natural world. Gould never forgets one of nature’s oldest laws: that everybody loves a story. Every month he tells me a remarkable story and then tells me why he thinks it came out the way it did.

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.

"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 author. It's a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength."