Alan Clark Quotes

There never was an age in which so many people were able to write badly.

Once the grammar has been learned, writing is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say.

Don't write naughty words on the wall if you can't spell!

I find words really hard.

It's usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks.

I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.

I excelled in English while I was at school.

Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence.

Editing is simply the application of the common sense of any good reader. That's why, to be an editor, you have to be a reader. It's the number one qualification.

Amateur bureaucrats are often even worse than professional bureaucrats.

If you can talk, you can write.

I don't like it when people don't know the difference between 'their', 'they're', 'there'.

Having a facility for language is an important part of being an author.

Your grammar is a reflection of your image. Good or bad, you have made an impression. And like all impressions, you are in total control.

I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days.

What I mind in modern society very much is the awful lack of grammar.

When our spelling is perfect, it's invisible. But when it's flawed, it prompts strong negative associations.

Anyone who doesn't read doesn't have any business writing.

To write, I think it is very important to read. The more you read, the more you know the techniques of writing.

I still don't know whether I know how to write a sentence.

I still like complete sentences that are grammatically correct without spelling errors. I don't always achieve this, and it is irksome to read a message I have sent and discover errors. I know I often leave out words in e-mail, not by choice, but because of the way my brain works.

I want to speak better English.

I guess my diction just isn't very good.

I think smartphones need to send an electrical shock to a user when they get their your/you're mixed up.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.