Janet Fitch Quotes

It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

A candidate for office can have no greater advantage than muddled syntax; no greater liability than a command of language.

I begin, then, with some remarks about 'the meaning of a word.' I think many persons now see all or part of what I shall say: but not all do, and there is a tendency to forget, or to get it slightly wrong. In so far as I am merely flogging the converted, I apologize to them.

An author arrives at a good style when his language performs what is required of it without shyness.

The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.

That is not good language which all understand not.

Don't use big words. They mean so little.

Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote.

We always speak well when we manage to be understood.

Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.

The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you can't understand them. The best sentence? The shortest.

Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.

The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another.

What I'm constantly striving for in my prose is clarity. So that, ideally, the writing will become so transparent that the reader will forget that the medium of communication is language.

You try to make every word count, so there's no doubt what you're talking about. When you're young, you waffle away. Well, I'm done with that. I think it's much more interesting to say just what you mean.

Nothing is more certain than much of the force; as well as grace, of arguments or instructions depends their conciseness.

There’s a tremendous power in using the least amount of information to get a point across.

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.