First we get the rocks out, Alice. Then we get the pebbles out. Then we get the sand out, and the writer’s voice rises. No harm done.

I can’t help but think that the way we punctuate now is the right way – that we are living in a punctuation renaissance.

Whom” may indeed be on the way out, but so is Venice, and we still like to go there.

A writer friend who was born in England summed up her feelings for the semicolon in a remark worthy of Henry James: “There is no pleasure so acute as that of a well-placed semicolon.” I guess the opposite of that is that there is no displeasure so obtuse as that of an ill-placed semicolon.

Nobody knows everything – one of the pleasures of language is that there is always something new to learn – and everybody makes mistakes.

I always forget that, in the popular imagination, the copy editor is a bit of a witch, and it surprises me when someone is afraid of me....Relax, I want to say. I don't make a habit of correcting people in conversation or in print--unless it's for publication and they ask for it, or I'm getting paid.

The point is not to let the orthography distract the reader from the meaning.

In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process.

Muphry’s Law: “If you write anything criticising editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.

I would never disable spell-check. That would be hubris. Autocorrect I could do without.