Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes

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

Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'.

Whatever I'm doing, I try to write well. I try to give the reader a nice, clean well-written surface, where the writing is transparent. It probably takes me longer to write things, but it's very important to me that the writing itself be good.

In the broadest possible sense, writing well means to communicate clearly and interestingly and in a way that feels alive to the reader. Where there’s some kind of relationship between the writer and the reader - even though it’s mediated by a kind of text - there’s an electricity about it.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

I cannot write long books; I leave that for those who have nothing to say.

If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses dont go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Fine writing is a distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attention from the subject

All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

To be understood a writer has to explain almost everything.

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

People who think well, write well

Successful writers learn at last what they should learn at first,--to be intelligently simple.

I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.

I thought clarity of communication was the most important thing in writing, and if you really cared about getting your idea across, you would say it in the most straightforward way possible. Later, in college and grad school, I came to realize that language is a technology like any other, and that it's always evolving - clarity of expression is always evolving.

I think each writer has to seek her most energetic prose style. She has to find a way to write so that nobody can deny it.

That is as true for fiction or non-fiction. The writer has to really know their subject. It is really important to remember that the readers are a lot smarter than the writer. Also, good writing has to do with rewriting. You will never get it right the first time. So you rewrite and rewrite again until you get it right. Until you, and the reader, will be able to visualize what you're writing about.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear.

Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind - -vividly, forcefully.

Like with anything, good writing suggest itself pretty strongly.

I try to write in a way where you care deeply what the next paragraph will be. I hear the rhythm of prose and that, to me, distinguishes great writing from ordinary writing. By the way, I don't even claim that I'm good. I claim that I value it.

Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal.

Never, ever condescend to the reader. Assume you are writing for someone better and smarter than you are. This will protect you from conventionalism, faddishness, and cliché.