Isaac Asimov Quotes

The way you write affects what you say.

A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.

It ain't whatcha write, it's the way atcha write it.

Style matters, but the real force of writing is ideas, not style.

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

Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words.

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.

I don't believe, in the end, that there is any such thing as no style. Even a very neutral, plain style, one that doesn't use colloquialisms, lyrical flourishes, heavy supplies of metaphor, etc., is a style, and it becomes a writer's characteristic style just as much as a thicker, richer deployment of idiom and vocabulary.

We speak naturally but spend all our lives trying to write naturally.

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

All the fun is in how you say a thing.

Style means the right word. The rest matters little.

Content dictates form and style.

Ek gret effect men write in place lite; Th'entente is al, and nat the lettres space.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

The thing about good writing is it has a music to it.

The more clearly you write, the more easily and surely you will be understood.

Technology must remain a tool. It's a great tool, but technology is the pen to write the book. It's not the book. If you have a great pen, maybe you'll write faster or it will look better, but at the end, you have something to say, or you don't.

The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.

In most writers, style is a welcome, an invitation, a letting down of the drawbridge between the artist and the world. Shaw had no time for such ruses. Unlike most of his countrymen, he abominated charm, which he regarded as evidence of chronic temperamental weakness.

The thing is, with writing, it's form or content. You need to write about something interesting or you need to write about it in an interesting way.

Good writers are in the business of leaving signposts saying, Tour my world, see and feel it through my eyes; I am your guide.

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change.