Rupi Kaur Quotes

I don't even use italics or boldface; that's clutter, not clarity. Fancy fonts are fine for blogs, just as calligraphy is fine for diaries. But when you're writing for anyone other than yourself, you want to get as universal as possible.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

Hard writing makes easy reading.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

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

Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.

I've really tried to strip my writing of as many adjectives and adverbs as I possibly can.

I work real hard so the reader doesn't have to. I don't want them to have to look up words.

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

I want it to be easy to read. I'm not writing exotic literature.

Adverbs lead to overwriting. Try taking them out and reading your prose again to see how it sounds. Simple and less words are more powerful.

Why say 'utilize' when you can say 'use'?

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

To make yourself understood you have to think plain and write plain.

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

I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read.

It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. You publish with shorth! (Shorth is better than length.)

Plate glass... has no beauty of its own. Ideally, you ought not to be able to see it at all, but through it you can see all that is happening outside. That is the equivalent of writing that is plain and unadorned. Ideally, in reading such writing, you are not even aware that you are reading. Ideas and events seem merely to flow from the mind of the writer into that of the reader without any barrier between. I hope that is what is happening when you read this book

Lettering should be invisible. You shouldn't notice it, unless it is a determined piece of storytelling in graphic design. Whether handmade or digital, the lettering should be easy on the eye and well placed. It should help tell the story and do nothing to get in the way of it.

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

You can tell it's a poem because it's swimming in a little gel pack of white space. That shows it's a poem.

One of the most significant design principles is to omit the unimportant in order to emphasize the important.

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.

People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity. Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves.

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