Literature and Words

A good rule for writers: Do not explain overmuch.

Don’t ever write anything you don’t like yourself and if you do like it, don’t take anyone else’s advice about changing it. They just don’t know.

I see but one rule: to be clear .

Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.

U SE SHORT SENTENCES . Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English, Be positive, not negative. Eliminate every superfluous word. Avoid the use of adjectives, especially such extravagant ones as splendid, gorgeous, grand, magnificent, etc.

A man who thinks much of his words as he writes them will generally leave behind him work that smells of oil.

Speech is the mirror of action.

There are simple maxims … which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short one will do. Second: if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the readers to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.

Words: the pieces of change in the currency of a sentence. They must not get in the way. There is always too much small change.

If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.

A man of letters may have a mistress who makes books, but he must have a wife who makes shirts.

Beware of creating tedium! I know no guard against this so likely to be effective as the feeling of the writer himself. When once the sense that the thing is becoming long and has grown upon him, he may be sure that it will grow upon his readers.

The less one feels a thing, the more likely one is to express it as it really is.

Steal! And egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children, disfigure them and make ’em pass for their own.

A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.

He was not of an age but for all time.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new?

Never express yourself more clearly than you think.

Prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain.

A great book is like great evil.

When it was written, God and Robert

It’s my own invention. the White Knight

A loose, plain, rude writer … I call a spade a spade.