Effective Writing Quotes

I hope that my ideas attract a lively dialogue, even if my sentences are simple. Simple sentences have always served me well. And I don't use semicolons. It's hard to read anyway, especially for high school kids. Also, I avoid irony, too. I don't like people saying one thing and meaning the other.

Less really is more. It's a tendency of beginning writers to want to prove what they're talking about by going too far with description. I think you've got to keep it short, crisp and clean.

History is not only the record of the past, but also the discipline of investigating and interpreting the past. The study of history develops habits of critical thinking and effective writing, as well as cultivates the careful analysis of various types of quantitative and qualitative evidence.

Disorganizatio n is the enemy of good writing.

By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.

The writing I tend to think of as 'good' is good because it's mysterious.

When I was speaking about communicating, I meant that the listener - we have to reach the listener; otherwise, of course, you're writing the piece, as I say, only for the satisfaction of seeing it on the paper for yourself, and then it ends right there.

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

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

Intelligence alone can't make a good writer and style alone can't make a good writer - that is, not a really important or significant writer - but the two things together make a really good writer.

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

Good storytelling appeals to me - good writing.

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

Anything works, as long as you write it properly.

The best sentence? The shortest.

Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.

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

Be brief, be pointed, let your matter standLucid in order, solid and at hand;Spend not your words on trifles but condense;Strike with the mass of thought, not drops of sense;Press to close with vigor, once begun,And leave, (how hard the task!) leave off, when done.

The best advice on writing I've ever received was from William Zinsser: 'Be grateful for every word you can cut.'

I believe so deeply in the primacy of language, in lifting your prose to the highest level you're capable of and making your words symphonic.

It has been said that good prose should resemble the conversation of a well-bred man.

Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. You know the ones: Was, did, had, made, went, looked... One-size-fits-all looks like crap on anyone. Sew yourself a custom made suit. Pick a better verb. Challenge all those verbs to really lift some weight for you.

The best writing has no lace on its sleeves.

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.