The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

by Steven Pinker

A writer, like a cinematographer, manipulates the viewer’s perspective on an ongoing story, with the verbal equivalent of camera angles and quick cuts.

The best words not only pinpoint an idea better than any alternative but echo it in their sound and articulation, a phenomenon called phonesthetics, the feeling of sound.

Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

The better you know something, the less you remember about how hard it was to learn.