Top 55 Strunk Quotes
#1. Pullum has special vitriol for Elements of Style, which he calls "E. B. White's disgusting and hypocritical revision of William Strunk's little hodgepodge of bad grammar advice and stylistic banalities" or
Robert Lane Greene
#2. And that's not all," she went on. "He's typing his memoirs. A man who can't scribble down a grocery list without consulting Strunk and White suddenly thinks he's an ex-president." They
Harlan Coben
#3. But your book is wrong, Mrs. Strunk, says George, when it tells you that Jim is the substitute I found for a real son, a real kid brother, a real husband, a real wife. Jim wasn't a substitute for anything. And there is no substitute for Jim, if you'll forgive my saying so, anywhere.
Christopher Isherwood
#4. Strunk and White don't speculate as to why so many writers are attracted to passive verbs, but I'm willing to; I think timid writers like them for the same reason timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.
Stephen King
#6. Nice. A shaggy, all-purpose word to be used sparingly in formal composition
William Strunk Jr.
#7. Opinions scattered indiscriminately about leave the mark of egotism.
William Strunk Jr.
#8. The audience, which had at first been indifferent, became more and more interested.
William Strunk Jr.
#9. The situation is perilous, but there is still one chance of escape.
William Strunk Jr.
#10. 2. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning.
William Strunk Jr.
#12. Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.
William Strunk Jr.
#13. Quotations introduced by that are regarded as in indirect discourse and not enclosed in quotation marks.
William Strunk Jr.
#15. In his New Yorker column of July 27, 1957, E. B. White praised the "little book" as a "forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English.
William Strunk Jr.
#18. Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.
William Strunk Jr.
#19. Rewrite and revise. Do not be afraid to seize what you have and cut it to ribbons ... Good writing means good revising.
William Strunk Jr.
#20. Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.
William Strunk Jr.
#21. Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language.
William Strunk Jr.
#22. Try - Takes the infinitive: "try to mend it," not "try and mend it." Students of the language will argue that 'try and' has won through and become idiom. Indeed it has, and it is relaxed and acceptable. But 'try to' is precise, and when you are writing formal prose, try and write 'try to.
William Strunk Jr.
#23. If every word or device that achieved currency were immediately authenticated, simply on the grounds of popularity, the language would be as chaotic as a ball game with no foul lines
William Strunk Jr.
#25. Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is ... If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority.
William Strunk Jr.
#26. A dash is a mark of separation stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses.
William Strunk Jr.
#27. The language is perpetually in flux: it is a living stream, shifting, changing, receiving new strength from a thousand tributaries, losing old forms in the backwaters of time.
William Strunk Jr.
#29. This book aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style.
William Strunk Jr.
#30. To air one's views gratuitously, is to imply that the demand for them is brisk.
William Strunk Jr.
#32. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.
William Strunk Jr.
#33. The surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definitive, and concrete. The greatest writers - Homer, Dante, Shakespeare - are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.
William Strunk Jr.
#35. Do not, therefore, say "I feel nauseous," unless you are sure you have that effect on others.
William Strunk Jr.
#37. The writer who has a definite meaning to express will not take refuge in such vagueness.
William Strunk Jr.
#40. Every writer, by the way he uses the language, reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacities, his bias ... Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able.
William Strunk Jr.
#41. Avoid fancy words ... If you admire fancy words, if every sky is beauteous, every blonde curvaceous, every intelligent child prodigious, if you are tickled by discombobulate, you will have bad time Reminder 14.
William Strunk Jr.
#43. As the American poet, Marianne Moore, said: There is a great deal of poetry in unconscious fastidiousness.
William Strunk Jr.
#44. In exposition and in argument, the writer must likewise never lose his hold upon the concrete; and even when he is dealing with general principles, he must furnish particular instances of their application.
William Strunk Jr.
#45. Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.
William Strunk Jr.
#46. Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
William Strunk Jr.
#48. Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating.
William Strunk Jr.
#49. 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.
William Strunk Jr.
#50. When a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.
William Strunk Jr.
#51. Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable.
William Strunk Jr.
#52. If you use a colloquialism or a slang word or phrase, simply use it; do not draw attention to it by enclosing it in quotation marks. To do so is to put on airs, as though you were inviting the reader to join you in a select society of those who know better.
William Strunk Jr.
#54. 1. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic.
William Strunk Jr.
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