Top 100 Quotes About Clear Writing
#1. At first the boys were puzzled by illness. They looked at their father from the other side of a wall of pain, bewildered that their father stood writing in his book, when he had only to reach over the division and lift them clear of it.
Diane Setterfield
#2. He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#3. A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.
Alfred North Whitehead
#4. I was at a party in 1989 and Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie were sitting on a sofa wondering where the next generation of great British writers would come from. As we talked, it became clear they had never read a word by me.
Jeanette Winterson
#5. Make sure your message is clear, yet that you are faithful to its complexity.
Michael Dirda
#6. My thought for today: Writing a letter to a friend today has helped clear a lot in my mind. It has taught me not to go on the defensive, instead to poke two fingers up to my critics who have no idea what restrictions there are when it comes to writing about a cold case".
Monica Weller
#7. People ask me all the time, "Where do your ideas come from?" So, to clear up this question ... I keep my ideas inside the mind of a tiny man who is tied up in my closet!
C.K. Webb
#8. Programming is the art of writing essays in crystal clear prose and making them executable
Per Brinch Hansen
#9. Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.
Seth Godin
#10. Something good happened to my writing when I stopped being afraid to do something simple, for the fear that people might think I couldn't do something more complex. Don't be confused by the word simple. Simple is not easy, it is clear voiced, and fearlessly elegant.
Carrie Newcomer
#11. Things that only a writer would understand - you're writing a character - you tell that character who she or he is and they stop you and make it clear, they are the ones telling their story. You just have to let them tell it.
Lisa Marbly-Warir
#12. The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.
Margaret Atwood
#13. Just do it. Get it down on the page. Work hard. And then let go. Ask yourself why you want to write. You have to be clear about that.
Yann Martel
#14. When I read a book I liked, I would get a pen and one of my father's legal pads and rewrite it from memory as if I had thought of it myself. It was a clear sign that I wanted to be involved in writing, even if it was just pretend at that point.
Jonathan Dee
#15. Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it.
Ernest Hemingway,
#16. Ms. Taylor's writing style is clear, without frills, and so streamlined that her story flows and flows and flows, without taking a break, to its satisfying conclusion.
Maeve of Tara
Vicki M. Taylor
#17. I started writing, or rather, thinking, stories as a child, and at that time the reason was very clear.
John Sladek
#18. 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
#19. Learning is not the consequence of teaching or writing, but rather of thinking ... so a playful, provocative, unclear but stimulating book could actually be more worth your money than a serious, clear book that tells you what to think but doesn't make you think.
Brian D. McLaren
#20. Invention comes about when we let it, when we don't mind feeling stupid as we do it - it feels like what children do, it is what children do - when we clear a place for it, become quiet, and wait.
Alice Mattison
#22. Even the imperative to make choice after choice without clear guidance - allegedly the most nerve-wracking part of the profession - isn't exclusive to writing.
Daniel Smith
#23. An education that does not teach clear, coherent writing cannot provide our world with thoughtful adults; it gives us instead, at the best, clever children of all ages.
Richard Mitchell
#24. There's a fine line between appropriate and inappropriate, but it better be a strong, clear line.' As a teacher, I took that advice to heart. As a writer, I asked, "'But what happens if the line isn't strong or clear?
Joseph Kenyon
#25. One of the disconcerting things about writing for publication is that you're trying to clear your little parcel of land in a field where Taste is king - and, as we all know, there's no accounting for Taste.
Darin Strauss
#26. Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind
vividly, forcefully ...
Samuel R. Delany
#27. There are always dimensions, and the way they get expressed is through the writing and the actors and the director you get to work with on that day. But there are always dimensions, outside of really basic stuff for very young people where it needs to be very clear.
Ben Mendelsohn
#28. And every friend I've got has been writing Mars stories. It was pretty clear I'd never catch up.
Larry Niven
#29. I learned that comedy is born out of strong characters. I won't begin writing a character until I have a clear take on them.
Maria Semple
#30. As I'm writing, certain things become clear to me and certain things begin to feel right and make sense. The pieces start to fall into place.
Candace Bushnell
#31. Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.
(Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)
Anton Chekhov
#32. I wish it was clear for me how it happened [stop writing songs], then maybe I could start writing again. But it's kind of an "it." It just submerged itself. Because the way I had always written was just that it came out. It just happened.
Joan Baez
#33. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.
Nikki Giovanni
#34. First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.
Cecil Day-Lewis
#35. At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting
Annie Dillard
#36. I've found that busting your ass on a daily basis to make your art good, clear, and meaningful creates the most luck.
Don Roff
#37. People spend a lifetime thinking about how they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
#38. Ryan Stout, a straight-arrow-looking kind of guy, shocks the crowd into laughter with his inventive interplay between innocence and a jarringly twisted point of view. He goes from loony to weirdly logical. With him, it's more than clever writing; his comedy is based on clear and clever thinking.
Ben Fong-Torres
#39. People who consistently win have a clear and thoughtful strategy. They know what they need to do and when they need to do it. They write it down so they stay on course, and avoid any alternative that does not get them closer to the finish line.
Phil McGraw
#40. The most clear-sided view of the darkest
possible situation is itself an act of optimism
Jean-Paul Sartre
#41. Top people have very clear goals. They know who they are and they know what they want. They write it down and they make plans for its accomplishment.
Brian Tracy
#42. Let's be clear - for people like me, who are obsessed with story and for whom words are their medium, writing is the best job possible. I work hard, but I earn more than the national average wage while I play with my imagination, and for me, that's a dream.
Sara Sheridan
#43. Going into the second arc, I'm making a conscious effort to do something I say I never do, which is to change my style because of feedback. I'm trying to make 'Pretty Deadly' more accessible by being more clear in the writing.
Kelly Sue DeConnick
#45. I wish I could be a better writer, but writing is so difficult. I get seduced by visual aesthetics. Because I just like making beautiful pictures, sometimes I wander away from making a clear statement.
Sally Mann
#46. Assuming you can write clear English sentences, give up all worry about communication. If you want to communicate, use the telephone.
Richard Hugo
#47. Writing requires discipline, detailed thinking, good communication skills, a plan of action, clear vision, and a passion for people. CMT Stibbe
C.M.T. Stibbe
#48. If I had a clear vision, none of my books would be what they are. I've got to let the characters show me the way.
Shandy L. Kurth
#49. Writing in the first person helps to make clear the author's role in constructing rather than discovering the story/knowledge.
Gayle Letherby
#50. I just started to want to be more hands on, and again, because of the nature of this job which was to evaluate the writing apart from the production, I got clear on what a director did and I became interested in directing, so I started to do that in the late 80s.
Rob Urbinati
#51. It is time to put down the pen; time to clear the throat. Speaking is a different thing altogether from writing. The spoken word has different properties, and different powers. If I have learned anything from writing down my own tale, it is this.
Dexter Palmer
#52. You have to be very clear with yourself about how you're going to spend your time. When a child is at school or napping, you need to realize that this is your writing time and you don't spend it surfing the Internet or reading.
Elizabeth Hoyt
#53. As the number of studies increased, it became clear that writing was a far more powerful tool for healing than anyone had ever imagined.
James W. Pennebaker
#54. Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.
Walter Savage Landor
#55. I report as a machine; I write as a person. That clear dichotomy softens the transition.
Dave Barry
#56. The main thing to know about me is that I'm a champion of entrepreneurs and the startups they build. They are my rock stars. If in doubt, I side with them, and that's clear from my writing.
Michael Arrington
#57. I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.
Robert Caro
#58. I see but one rule: to be clear.
Stendhal
#59. His Majesty the King requires that the Royal Chancellery in all written documents endeavor to write in clear, plain Swedish.
Charles XII Of Sweden
#60. I'm not quite sure when I began to be troubled by the creeping sense of my own ludicrousness, but it persisted - and eventually grew into a fascination. I started writing about it. Thus, in His characteristically mysterious way, the Lord made clear His plans for me.
Glen Duncan
#61. Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded ...
Plato
#62. Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. It doesn't matter whether the good writer wants to be useful, or whether the good writer wants to be harm.
Ezra Pound
#63. Arizona, our beautiful state, was built on mining. Copper is huge here, and now uranium. And then we have the federal government coming in, writing all these rules and regulations and telling us that we can't do this and we can't do that. We need concise, clear answers.
Jan Brewer
#64. The book [ A Passage to India ] shows signs of fatigue and disillusionment; but it has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it makes us wonder, what will he write next?
E. M. Forster
#65. Each thing you add to your story is a drop of paint falling into clear water; it spreads through and colors everything.
Lisa Cron
#66. Writing means organizing your thoughts. If your mind is scattered, your writing is scattered. If your mind is focused, your writing will be clear. Then your reader will say, 'Yes, I get it.
Robert Peate
#67. Never start with a clear idea of storyline. Instead, commence blindly, with a vague notion of trying to include a reference to your favourite band, gift shop, or chocolate bar.
Alan C. Martin
#68. If there is a secret to writing, I haven't found it yet. All I know is you need to sit down, clear your mind, and hang in there.
Mary McGrory
#69. Even when I am writing I usually take a break around lunchtime and go for a little walk to clear out my head.
Patricia Cornwell
#70. The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary.
Stephen King
#71. I, as the writer, can be very clear that I am writing a work of heightened fiction, as opposed to documenting horrible things that happen every day in the world. Which I have no interest in doing.
Bryan Fuller
#72. Short, sweet, and to the point. Clear writing, and therefore clear commands, comes from clear thinking. Think simple.
Tim Ferriss
#73. I want my writing to be as clear as water I can see through so that what I experienced is told without my being in any way in the way.
John Cage
#74. Most good writing is clear, vigorous, honest, alive, sensuous, appropriate, unsentimental, rhythmic, without pretension, fresh, metaphorical, evocative in sound, economical, authoritative, surprising, memorable, and light.
Ken Macrorie
#75. I did not think that I was angry, but clearly anger was reflected in my writing. I did not think that I had been affected emotionally, but it was clear from my writing that I was still very emotional about the trial some six months after it ended.
Christopher Darden
#76. It was a woman
as pale and luminescent as a ghost, with swirling white hair. Ezra startled, dropping his pencil into the water. Her face snapped toward him. Her eyes were too large, clear green, and had horizontal, slit-shaped pupils, reminiscent of an octopus.
Elizabeth Fama
#77. All these people helped make this book possible. But let me make one thing clear: If there are any errors or omissions in this book, these people are not responsible. In the end, there is only one person responsible for what I write, and that person, of course, is: Donald Trump.
Dave Barry
#78. I am never as clear about any matter as when I have finished writing about it.
James Van Allen
#79. Will you be so kind, Mademoiselle, as to write down your permanent address on this piece of paper?' She complied. Her writing was clear and legible.
Agatha Christie
#80. The desk thing is a problem for me. The ideal one would be vast and perfectly clear. Yet the bane of the biographical existence is paper; if you're 'an artist under oath' you're writing from a mountain of documentation.
Stacy Schiff
#81. Rich will be my life if I
can keep my memories full
and brimming, and record
them on clear-eyed
mornings while I set
joyously to work setting
pen to holy craft.
Roman Payne
#82. Most clear writing is a sign that there is no exploration going on. Clear prose indicates the absence of thought.
Marshall McLuhan
#83. I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.
Ezra Pound
#84. 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
#85. A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.
Aristotle.
#86. When I try to write love, it only turns into horror. Thinking about it with a clear head, feeling such deep emotions to some other person you don't even know is truly a terrifying thingI wonder if love isn't a manifestation of madness in some way.
Gen Urobuchi
#87. We were given clear concrete tools. The course did a great job demystifying the art of fiction writing and fostering confidence. The instructor brought complex concepts down to earth. I will miss coming here every week.
Miguel Ferrer
#88. And when you clear away the cobwebs of the description of every job in the world, at the bottom of that job is service. It's service. And I took that ethic and applied it to my writing craft.
Adriana Trigiani
#89. You can then further enhance the process of writing by forming the clear intention that your Higher Self will influence your writing.
Genevieve Gerard
#90. Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.
Eudora Welty
#91. The most important thing in writing process is the vibe cause if you on a roll, if you feel it you just feel it. And it's all about the atmosphere, the people around you, you know, everything. You got to be clear headed in that and have a perfect atmosphere.
French Montana
#92. Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do
William Zinsser
#93. [On writing biography:] ... every human life is at once so complex and so simple, so perplexing and so clear, so superficial and so profound, that any attempt to present it as a unified, consistent whole, to enclose it within a rigid frame, inevitably tempts one to cheat or to falsify.
Iris Origo
#94. It's hard to draw clear lines between writing and life and I don't think it is necessary to or necessarily good to.
Jonathan Safran Foer
#95. To write well about the elegant world you have to know it and experience it to the depths of your being ... what matters is not whether you love it or hate it, but only to be quite clear about your position regarding it.
Italo Calvino
#96. I don't think I will ever write about politics or foreign policy. I feel like there is so much good writing in those areas that I have little to add. I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like.
Malcolm Gladwell
#97. If you have a machine with three or four parts, you can shake them up in a box and it's still pretty clear what's there. If you have a machine with 10,000 parts and you shake them up in a box, what you have is a box of junk.
Gene Wolfe
#98. He regarded himself as an accomplished writer - a clear sign of madness in anyone.
Paul Theroux
#99. 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.
Clive James
#100. All prizes have a role, if they are run with integrity and with a clear focus on reading and quality writing. I don't think any of them is necessary, but they all play an incredibly important role in building a body of literature, in introducing new authors to new readers, and extending reading.
Kate Mosse