“The successful memoirist [blogger] respects facts, uses them accurately, rigorously represses the human impulse to lie or embellish, but knows that truth is both different from facts and greater than facts, and not always their sum.”

When a new writer defends his “style,” the teacher smiles (or cringes) because real style isn’t an artifice. Real style – voice – arrives on its own, as an extension of a writer’s character.

When style is done self-consciously and purposefully it becomes affectation, and as transparent as any affectation – an English accent on an old college chum from New Jersey, for example.

If something is opinion, put it in the opinion section: Don’t put it in the facts section.

To me, one of the proofs that there is a moral governance in the universe is the fact that when people and governments work intelligently and far-sightedly for the good of others, they achieve their own prosperity, too.

It is a fact of history that those who seek to withdraw from its great experiments usually end up being overwhelmed by them.

The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.

In fact, not only do I support eliminating soft money, but I support full public financing for campaigns.

The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.

Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.