Clear Writing Quotes

Hire great writers If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn't matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off. That's because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else's shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. ~ Jason Fried

When I write what publishers call 'fantasy' I am writing in what I think is the most important tradition of fiction: starting with Homer and up through Shakespeare and Milton, the most important themes to tackle are those of the mythopoeic domain, tales of the body and mind seen through a temperament and a cosmos divorced from current reality so what is said can be more clear. ~ Janet Morris

Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. ~ Pat Conroy

There is a view in some philosophical circles that anything that can be understood by people who have not studied philosophy is not profound enough to be worth saying. To the contrary, I suspect that whatever cannot be said clearly is probably not being thought clearly either. ~ Peter Singer

Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense. If you write in a way that is clear, transparent, and elegant, it will reach everyone. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen. ~ Carl Sandburg

Short, sweet, and to the point. Clear writing, and therefore clear commands, comes from clear thinking. Think simple. ~ Tim Ferriss

Most clear writing is a sign that there is no exploration going on. Clear prose indicates the absence of thought. ~ Marshall McLuhan

I see but one rule: to be clear. ~ Stendhal

I have time to write 1-2 novels per year, and get roughly novel-sized ideas every month. I have to perform triage on my own writing impulses. ~ Charles Stross

It would have been very easy to drift into writing a non-fiction book so by taking it away from Nottingham I forced myself to imagine much more of it. ~ Jon McGregor

You're a writer. And that's something better than being a millionaire. Because it's something holy. ~ Harlan Ellison

Every time I flicked channels, there I was, talking. I was talking too much and writing too little. So Naomi and I went to Hawaii. The phone was cut off and we lost touch. This gave me the chance to have a good think about my life. ~ Joe Eszterhas

I am in no way a confident person - except when it comes to what I'm writing. It's just like, this is what I can do, and I have what I think is a pretty strong voice, for better or worse. It's the style I like to write in. ~ Megan Amram

Me personally, I side more with punk rock bands. I grew up with The Misfits, The Dead Boys, The Damned, Dropkick Murphys, and early AFI. That was the stuff that really got me into music. Song writing wise, bands like Alkaline Trio were very important to me for beginning to write songs. ~ Andy Biersack

Every time I think about writing, comedy doesn't interest me in the slightest. I can play comedy, but I don't think in terms of comic dialogue. ~ Jim Parsons

What is she writing? Watch her now,
How fast her fingers move!
How eagerly her youthful brow
Is bent in thought above!
Her long curls, drooping, shade the light,
She puts them quick aside. ~ The Brontë Sisters

Writing a novel is like traveling the universe on foot. ~ Dennis R. Miller

There is a problem in America. An Irish or Polish American can write a story and it's an American story. When a Black American writes a story, it's called a Black story. I take exception to that. Every artist has articulated to his own experience. The problem is that some people do not see Blacks as Americans. ~ Gloria Naylor

Pitt the Elder, had been prime minister a generation before (1766-68). He was a manic-depressive, had had a mental breakdown in 1751 while a Cabinet minister (Paymaster General) and had withdrawn from public office for three years. While serving in the highest office, clear signs of mental instability were evident. He spent most of his prime ministership sequestered away in a small room in his house at Hampstead, trying to avoid his ministers and the pressures of governing. During his time, his Chancellor was doing his own thing, unwisely levying the taxes on the North American colonies that would eventually ignite the War of Independence. ~ Phil Mason

In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin' these songs too damn long.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, but I'm tellin' a story. I have a story to tell.' And he'd say, 'Well, you're not going to get it on the radio.' If I start writing a song, I'm writing it for a reason. People would say that I had to have two verses, and a chorus, and a bridge. I tried to learn that formula. ~ Dolly Parton

Part of coming to know Jesus is coming to know ourselves, Papa. Seeing all the things that we otherwise might wish to keep hidden. Even from our own minds." Jamal lifted his face, creased in sorrows only he could know, to hers. He shook his head as if to clear it. Julia said, "The closer we come to Jesus, the more we recognize his perfect love. And the more we see how far removed we are from this perfection. He calls to us with that love and forgiveness. He invites us to grow, to become more than we ever could be on our own. ~ Davis Bunn

He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint ... but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. ~ C.S. Lewis

I knew I could only play Cyrano if he were Americanized. I had no intention of writing the script myself. I was afraid of it. You're playing with fire when you tamper with a classic. So I went looking for a writer. But it was such a personal idea, and anyone I would give it to would make it his own. It's hard to ask Neil Simon to write your idea. ~ Steve Martin

To do the intellectually demanding work of writing, I leave my home office and my three beloved computer monitors to work at the wonderful old library that's just a block from my apartment. The atmosphere of a library helps me to think. When I want to take a break, instead of heading to the kitchen for a snack, I wander among the many floors of books. ~ Gretchen Rubin

There's nothing easy about writing. It's always difficult. It's always a struggle. ~ Khaled Hosseini

What writing practice, like Zen practice does is bring you back to the natural state of mind ... The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think-well-mannered, congenial. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Editors seek out the first novels with the seductiveness of Don Juans; the pleasure of discovery is one of the obvious reasons. ~ William Targ

The great thing about having a child is that it keeps you very grounded. When I decided to have my daughter I was ready to have that responsibility and I made it clear to people that I work with that my job was no longer my priority. My daughter is now my priority. She comes first. Period. ~ Carolyn Murphy

One of the achievements of which I am most proud was the codification, the writing into U.S. law, of the U.S. embargo on the Castro dictatorship. ~ Lincoln Diaz-Balart

When you left
you left behind a field
of silent flowers
under a sky
full of unstirred clouds...you left
a million butterflies
mid-silky flutters

You left like midnight rain
against my dreaming ears

Oh and how you left
leaving my coffee scentless
and my couch comfortless

leaving upon my fingers
the melting snow of you

you left behind
a calendar full of empty days
and seasons full of aimless wanders

leaving me alone
with an armful of sunsets

your reflection behind
in every puddle
your whispers
upon every curtain
your fragrance
inside every petal

you left your echoes in between
the silence of my eyes

Oh and how you left
leaving my sands footless
and my shores songless

leaving me with windows full of
moistened moonlight

nights and nights
of only a half-warmed soul

and when you left...
you left behind a lifetime
of moments untouched

the light of a million stars
unshed

and when you left
you somehow
left my poem...unfinished.



(Published in Taj Mahal Review Vol.11
Number 1 June 2012) ~ Sanober Khan

We each have a little imagination in all of us, and a book is the best absorbent there is. ~ S.A. Tawks

If you live with dogs, you'll never run out of things to write about. ~ Sharon Delarose

When I was in high school and college, my other real focus was, actually, fiction writing. So in college, I had done all these seminars with these various writers-in-residence. ~ Lily Rabe

Writing for children isn't easy. Kids will abandon a story that doesn't interest, enchant, delight, thrill, or terrify them. But when you can find a way into a young reader's imagination through something as simple as words on paper, well, there's nothing more satisfying. ~ Kate Klise

I used to be an editor and I was editing young adult series. I didn't really like the books that I was reading, so I decided that I would write a book about something I'd want to read if I was 16. It turned into a Cinderella story ... I developed a proposal and the characters of 'Gossip Girl' for my job. ~ Cecily Von Ziegesar

I tried to find a way out in many ways, but it all caught up with me. Once I realised I could sing and write songs, it was just so much easier to do than anything else! ~ Martha Wainwright

I was a businessman for 16 years of my life, so when I started writing, I wanted to keep my literary identity separate. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

When had things gotten so tangled in her heart and mind? Everything had been clear at one point, hadn't it? No, she supposed it never had been perfectly clear. ~ L.A. Kuehlke

It was like being asleep when you were awake and awake when you were asleep. I'd pinch myself, figuratively speaking - I had to keep pinching myself. Then I'd wake up kind of in reverse; I'd go back to the nightmare I had to live in. And everything would be clear and reasonable. ~ Jim Thompson

A story is a magnificent painting that draws you in and captures your attention with words. ~ Liza M. Wiemer

I'd wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema. ~ Jim Jarmusch

Don't let writers block push you around. Figure out what the problem is,whether it's with the ms or it's in your personal life, and face it head on. Don't stop writing. Just try really hard to work through it. ~ Darynda Jones

I must not linger on details, daughter, because if we dally, this account may be left unfinished, and no one wants to read hundreds of quartos only to find that the story has no clear ending. ~ Isabel Allende

I write to find what I have to say. I edit to figure out how to say it right. ~ Cheryl Strayed

beyond their right - and now they would be made to pay for it. Envy was being acted out, as never before.'62 It led to the murder of six million Jews in the Second World War. Today, I find envy laced through the statements of European and Indian intellectuals about America. Arundhati Roy's essay after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington is an example. Like many anti-American intellectuals writing in the days after the attack, Roy claimed that it was the direct result of American foreign policy - the implication being that America somehow deserved what had happened. There is widespread anti-American sentiment in the world which regards the United States as arrogant, indifferent to human suffering, consumerist, and contemptuous of international law. Much of this is probably correct, but I find that some of it is inspired by envy of America's success. ~ Gurcharan Das

But if I am not a criminal, I beg to be permitted to go abroad with my wife temporarily, for at least one year, with the right to return as soon as it becomes possible in our country to serve great ideas in literature without cringing before little men, as soon as there is at least a partial change in the prevailing view concerning the role of the literary artist. ("Letter To Stalin") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Read and write. That's the recipe for being a writer. ~ J.D. Cunegan

I should walk away. That would be the right thing to do. It would be the smart thing. But I can't, because I'm Taylor Caldwell, the girl who cuts. ~ S. Elle Cameron

Ask yourself, what makes my book so different? So interesting? Don't write to be a best seller. Write for and from your heart, not your wallet. Write something you want to be remembered by. ~ Leon Nacson

My feeling is that, and I've been writing about my family over the years, although it might make them feel uncomfortable, people generally like to be written about. If I've written a song about the family, they enjoy being mentioned in the songs. Nobody's confronted me and said 'don't write any songs about me. ~ Loudon Wainwright III

I would like to emphasize again that right prayer leads to right action, that faith without works is dead. An excellent way to put thoughts into action is to write a letter for peace. ~ Peace Pilgrim