Controversial Guide to Good Writing

How to Write Gooder: The Controversial Guide to Good Writing (and Not Sucking)

"When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing."
~ Enrique Jardiel Poncela

"If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that’s read by persons who move their lips when they’re reading to themselves."
~ Don Marquis

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."
~ Henry David Thoreau

"If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses."
~ Henry Ford.

"I try to leave out the parts that people skip."
~ Elmore Leonard

"Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say."
~ Sharon O’Brien

"Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space."
~ Orson Scott Card

"Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."
~ Flannery O’Connor

"A writer should say to himself, not, How can I get more money?, but How can I reach more readers (without lowering standards)?"
~ Brian Aldiss

"Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret."
~ Matthew Arnold

"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs."
~ Christopher Hampton

"More conversations and fewer announcements."
~ Seth Godin