27.6.11

Good writing is easy if you have a little help. Here are some words of wisdom from good writers, past and present. Let's dive right in...


One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment. Hart Crane


As for style of writing, if one has anything to say, it drops from him simply and directly, as a stone falls to the ground.
Henry David Thoreau


The sentence works when you cannot remove a single word without changing the meaning.
John Carlton

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
William Shakespeare

There's no right way of writing. There's only your way.
Milton Lomask


Effective communication. It's simply a matter of being the right person, communicating the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, and in the right way.
Daniel Levis

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing. 
Benjamin Frankin 

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
Mark Twain



If being a writer is important to you, keep at it, keep improving, and don't give up. I wrote three books that were never published. I sent the first one out to everybody. I went through every agent and publisher in New York, twice. The only positive letter that I got back was from an agent, but it was written in purple crayon on a bar napkin, so I didn't follow up on it. Then, presto, ten years later I was a published author.
Janet Evanovich
 

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
Robert Frost

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
David Hare

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. 
Robert Benchley

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.
Truman Capote

Every writer I know has trouble writing.
Joseph Heller

Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

Gene Fowler

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

John Steinbeck


In good writing, words become one with things. Ralph Waldo Emerson


I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it's seeing two things and having them come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question 'What if?' 'What if' is always the key question.
Stephen King

Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation. 
Laurence Sterne

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

William Strunk

My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.

Anne Lamott

I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.

Flannery O'Connor


When your copy reads at a 5th grade level, it’s primal. Gut level impact. It sails right into your reader’s brain and sticks. Your reader spends his brain cells digesting your ideas, not your sentences.
Perry Marshall

I wrote because I had to. I couldn't stop. There wasn't anything else I could do. If no one ever bought anything, anything I ever did, I'd still be writing. It's beyond a compulsion.

Tennessee Williams

The writings of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander. 
Walter Savage Landor

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I’d type a little faster.
Issac Asimov

The point of good writing is knowing when to stop.
L.M. Montgomery


Thanks for stopping by to get inspired. Contact me in the form below if you'd like to be an easy writer, too.
  Tell me what interests you in a few words and I will personally reply. Your contact information will never be shared or sold, it's safe with me.






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