William Hazlitt Quotes

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

I want my prose to be as clear as a pane of glass.

We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.

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

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

Let us not write at a loose rambling rate, in hope the world will wink at all our faults.

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

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.

Writing for children is murder. A chapter has to be boiled down to a paragraph. Every word has to count.

Style means the right word. The rest matters little.

A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing-to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics-Well, they can do whatever they wish.

a writer's first duty is to be clear. Clarity is an excellent virtue. Like all virtues it can be pursued at ruinous cost. Paid, so far as I am concerned, joyfully.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

You should make it hard on yourself to write so you’re easier to read.

[Presently, science undergraduates] do not learn to write clearly and briefly, marshalling their points in due and aesthetically satisfying order, and eliminating inessentials. They are inept at those turns of phrase or happy analogy which throw a flying bridge across a chasm of misunderstanding and make contact between mind and mind.

The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: Focus on clarity. Concentrate on precisions. Don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.

Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal.

Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue... I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.

The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

Easy reading requires hard writing.

The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.