I read this book while I was in college after Joann Beard gave a talk at my school. I remember very clearly how she spoke about writing on a sentence level and how she could never move on from one sentence to the next until it is absolutely perfect. She found this frustrating as it made her work very slowly. That said, I think every sentence in this book is perfect. I read it with such awe. I still think about it all the time many years later.