Stanley Fish Quotes

Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work.

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.

I was always influenced by language.

I don't start with a design objective, I start with a communication objective. I feel my project is successful if it communicates what it is supposed to communicate.

I like good strong words that mean something.

It is always difficult to get across to people who are not professional writers that a talent to write does not mean a talent to write anything at all.

When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change.

The ability to write compelling emails may be the single most useful talent an organizer can possess.

You cannot teach somebody to write a masterpiece, but you can certainly teach them how to improve their writing skills. And you can teach them that they can make their own voices more effective by being able to communicate more clearly and forcefully. It makes people feel more capable when they can write - for instance to make a request - of a politician - and when they are able to receive a reply.

Language surely does affect our thoughts, rather than just labeling them for the sake of labeling them. Most obviously, language is the conduit through which people share their thoughts and intentions and thereby acquire the knowledge, customs, and values of those around them."

The aim of talk should be like the aim of a flying arrow -- to hit the mark; but to this end there must be a mark to hit, that is, there must be a listener.

When people say they write for themselves, that's probably what they do. I will admit that I don't write for myself; I write to be read. I've got the reader in my mind all the time.

People who think well, write well

I try to be specific. One thought at a time. Clear. Articulate. And above all, memorable, if you can be. You'd like to write phrases that people can't forget as soon as they read them.

You can beat the drum so hard that people stop listening. I wanted to use my voice wisely and not expend it wastefully.

[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.

Euphonic and harmonious expressions, forcible and just expressions, profound and comprehensive expressions, and especially apt and witty expressions, each have their specific influence upon different minds, and their common influence upon all minds.... It is therefore high time our most valuable aphorisms and paragraphs were put in order for frequent perusal, and for handy reference, as the circumstances of life call up subjects.

Style is important, but content comes first.

The reason business writing is horrible is that people are afraid. Afraid to say what they mean, because they might be criticized for it. Afraid to be misunderstood, to be accused of saying what they didn't mean, because they might be criticized for it.

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.

People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back.

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.

So there are all kinds of things that grammarian purists would argue are awkward forms of speech and sometimes they are intentional for rhetorical effect and sometimes it's the way people chose to write at the time. Inerrancy isn't interested in any of those kinds of things.

Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn't mean you've reached them.

The number of people who can copulate properly may be few; the number who can write well are infinitely fewer.