Style means the right word. The rest matters little. Jules Renard
I do not over-intellectualise the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story. Tom Clancy
Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life. Hunter S. Thompson
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. Ezra Pound
My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent prose. I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant. Ken Follett
After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. Philip Pullman
I want the story to have a rhythm that keeps moving forward. Because that’s the whole point of telling a story. You’re on a journey — you’re going from here to there. It’s got to move. Ursula K. Le Guin
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. Henry David Thoreau
I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly. Edgar Rice Burroughs
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. Anton Chekhov
And one of [the things you learn as you get older] is, you really need less… My model for this is late Beethoven. He moves so strangely and quite suddenly sometimes from place to place in his music, in the late quartets. He knows where he’s going and he just doesn’t want to waste all that time getting there. … One is aware of this as one gets older. You can’t waste time. Ursula K. Le Guin
My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way. Ernest Hemingway
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style. Stephen King
One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. Stephen King
When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done. Stephen King
Part 1. I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. Mark Twain
Part 2. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. Mark Twain
Part 3. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice. Mark Twain
All stories have to at least try to explain some small portion of the meaning of life. Gene Weingarten
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Thomas Jefferson
