Roger Rosenblatt Quotes

Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.

If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses dont go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Don't write slogans, write truths.

I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.

I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference. It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things.

The only way to write well, so that people believe what we say and are interested or touched by it, is to slough off all pretentiousness and attitudinizing.

I enjoy people who aren't afraid to say what they mean. It makes life so much easier!

I was telling the truth. I feel like we got that point across.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Be sincere, be brief, be seated.

Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.

Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds.

I'm trying to speak--to write-the truth. I"m trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.

There is no artifice as good and desirable as simplicity.

He who has truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.

To express truth is to write naturally, forcibly, and delicately.

When you're more focused in getting your message across than you are worrying about how people are viewing you, that's huge.

If you write well, you don't have to dress funny.

More matter with less art.

The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style - all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.

Naked Truth needs no shift.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Honesty needs no disguise nor ornament; be plain.

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.