Literature and Words

Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.

People don’t like using dictionaries when they’re reading mere novels.

Words are to be taken seriously. I try to take seriously acts of language. Words set things in motion. I’ve seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges. I’ve felt them doing it. Words conjure. I try not to be careless about what I utter, write, sing. I’m careful about what I give voice to.

There is always one right word; use it, despite its foul or merely ludicrous associations.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

It is immoral not to tell.

Write to register history.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherazade, in order not to die. It’s one of the oldest urges of mankind. It’s a way of stalling death.

You don’t write because you want to say something; you write because you’ve got something to say.

Each of us is like a desert, and a literary work is like a cry from the desert, or like a pigeon let loose with a message in its claws, or like a bottle thrown into the sea. The point is: to be heard—even if by one single person.

When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know.

You write because you want to be read.

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second, that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can’t think of what to do with the long winter evenings.

Never write about a place until you’re away from it, because it gives you perspective.

H EMINGWAY GAVE a great piece of advice about writing, which I follow. He said always finish when you’re in a little bit of a flow, for the next bout.

The moment a man begins to talk about technique, that’s proof he is fresh out of ideas.

Every novelist ought to invent his own technique.

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

Write with a smile, even when it’s horrible or tragic.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

I am well aware that an addiction to silk underwear does not necessarily imply that one’s feet are dirty. Nonetheless, style, like sheer silk, too often hides eczema.