#Style Quotes

“A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.”

“A man's style is his mind's voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.”

“The short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.”

“Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land;Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.”

“One must regard the hyphen as a blemish to be avoided wherever possible.”

“A writer should give direct certainty; explanations are so much water poured into the wine.”

“The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.”

“I buy expensive suits - they just look cheap on me.”

“Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can't dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than any words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.”

“I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases.”

“Lines slip easily down the accustomed grooves. The old designs are copied so glibly that we are half inclined to think them original, save for that very glibness.”

“The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Variant: The adjective is the enemy of the substantive.”

“All styles are good except the tiresome kind.”

“Style is such a personal thing; it's your way to be an individual.”

“We agreed that people are now afraid of the English language. He [T.S. Eliot] said it came of being bookish, but not reading books enough. One should read all styles thoroughly.”

“Style is only the frame to hold your thoughts. It is like the sash of a window; if heavy, it will obscure the light.”

“One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.”

“Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface.”

“And now more than anything I want beautiful prose. I relish it more and more exquisitely.”

“Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words.”

“The comparison between Coleridge and Johnson is obvious in so far as each held sway chiefly by the power of his tongue. The difference between their methods is so marked that it is tempting, but also unnecessary, to judge one to be inferior to the other. Johnson was robust, combative, and concrete; Coleridge was the opposite. The contrast was perhaps in his mind when he said of Johnson: "his bow-wow manner must have had a good deal to do with the effect produced.”

“I'm not into fashion, but I like design. I wear the same shoes every day.”

“People ask 'do you make a conscious effort not to swear?' - if you're doing silly stuff you're not tempted to put swearing in. All the comics from my childhood, who were funny without swearing, were the people that influenced me. What I do is quite traditional anyway.”

“His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.”

“A man is called affected, nowadays, if he dresses as he likes to dress. But in doing that he is acting in a perfectly natural manner. Affectation, in such matters, consists in dressing according to the views of one's neighbour, whose views, as they are the views of the majority, will probably be extremely stupid.”

“Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

“I try to think of myself as a chic fishing grandpa aesthetically.”

“I feel like every outfit I have ever planned ahead is trash.”

“Women's styles may change but their designs remain the same.”

“I may have said the same thing before... but my explanation, I am sure, will always be different.”

“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 far apart.”

“Digression is the soul of wit.”

“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. 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. 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.”

“My favorite writers have been those who've said things well.”

“If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture.”

“What can we writers learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.”

“Written things are not for speech; their form is literary; they are stiff, inflexible, and will not lend themselves to happy and effective delivery with the tongue-where their purpose is to merely entertain, not instruct; they have to be limbered up, broken up, colloquialized and turned into common forms of premeditated talk-otherwise they will bore the house and not entertain it.”

“Though of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something.”

“Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.”

“Style is less the man than the way a man takes himself.”

“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.”

“She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove - "that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.”

“It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.”

“There are different kinds of humor, some is sarcastic, some introspective. Introspective fit my personality better.”

“All the fun is in how you say a thing.”

“An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop.... I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.”

“The style is the man. Rather say the style is the way the man takes himself; and to be at all charming or even bearable, the way is almost rigidly prescribed. If it is with outer seriousness, it must be with inner humor. If it is with outer humor, it must be with inner seriousness. No other way will do.”

“An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.”

“Just as the orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising and lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweler.”

“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.”