Shelby Steele Quotes

I think what's really hard is making sense and making what you write clear and smooth-flowing.

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

With great writing, there is great clarity.

Good writing does not come from verbiage but from words.

Ultimately, it's about the quality of the writing whatever style you are writing.

Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.

Give me good writing, and I'll play it all day.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

Mainly I love working on good writing.

I am a stickler for damn good writing.

Half your battle is won when the writing is good, and then you as an artist bring your personality into it.

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

You should write, write, write every day, and learn to edit and pare it right back so you're proud of every sentence, and each one is either being useful or beautiful, but hopefully both.

Disorganizatio n is the enemy of good writing.

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

Like with anything, good writing suggest itself pretty strongly.

Easy reading requires hard writing.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs; do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts as the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite.

Journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one. You are trained to get rid of anything nonessential. You go in, you start writing your article, assuming a person's going to stop reading the minute you give them a reason. So the trick is: don't give them one.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

I think that as you learn more about writing you learn to be direct.

A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.

Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.

And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them.