Margaret Atwood Quotes

I always encourage people in the early parts of their career to focus on writing. If you can communicate clearly, if you can articulate a thought, if you can write a great story, then you're going to be successful.

The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. Because I have the greatest respect for the reader, and if he's going to the trouble of reading what I've written -- I'm a slow reader myself and I guess most people are -- why, the least I can do is make it as easy as possible for him to find out what I'm trying to say, trying to get at. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

If I went back to college again, I'd concentrate on learning to write and to speak before an audience . Nothing is more important than the abillity to communicate effectively.

If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say.

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.

The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe critic to himself.

I always admire writers. My father was a writer, a poet. I always admire people who can clearly state their mind.

To write well it is first necessary to have something to say.

The difficulty is not to write, but to write what you mean.

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.

Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind - -vividly, forcefully.

Like with anything, good writing suggest itself pretty strongly.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

Writing well is at one and the same time good thinking, good feeling, and good expression; it is having wit, soul, and taste, all together.

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

The art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind.

Anything works, as long as you write it properly.

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

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

Good writers hate bad writing but hating bad writing doesn’t make you good. Writing badly does.

To write prescriptions is easy, but to come to an understanding with people is hard.

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

Sound judgment is the ground of writing well.

Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

People just don't know how to write down a simple easy line. It's difficult for them; it's like trying to keep a hard-on while drowning - not many can do it.