Alphabet Of Advice To Writers
A word out of place spoils the most beautiful thought.--Voltaire.
Begin humbly. Labor faithfully. Be patient.--Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Cultivate accuracy in words and things; amass sound knowledge; avoid all
affectation; write all topics which interest you.--F. W. Newman.
Don't be afraid. Fight right along. Hope right along.--S.L. Clemens.
Every good writer has much idiom; it
is the life and spirit of
Language.--W. S. Landor.
Follow this: If you write from the heart, you will write to the
heart.--Beaconsfield
Genius may begin great works, but only continued labor completes
them.--Joubert.
Half the writer's art consists in learning what to leave in the
ink-pot.--Stevenson.
It is by suggestion, not cumulation, that profound impressions are made
on the imagination.--Lowell.
Joy in one's work is an asset beyond the valuing in mere dollars.--C. D.
Warner.
Keep writing--and profit by criticism. Use for a motto Michael Angelo's
wise words: Genius is infinite patience.--L. M. Alcott.
Lord, let me never tag a moral to a story, nor tell a story without a
meaning.--Van Dyke.
More failures come from vanity than carelessness.--Joseph Jefferson.
Never do a pot-boiler. Let one of your best things go to boil the
pot.--O. Henry.
Originality does not mean oddity, but freshness. It means vitality, not
novelty.--Norman Hapgood.
Pluck feathers from the wings of your imagination, and stick them in the
tail of your judgment.--Horace Greeley.
Quintessence approximates genius. Gather much though into few words.
--Schopenhauer.
Revise. Revise. Revise.--E. E. Hale.
Simplicity has been held a mark of truth: it is also it mark of
genius.--Carlyle.
The first principle of composition of whatever sort is that it should be
natural and appear to have happened so.--Frederick Macmonnies.
Utilize your enthusiasms. Get the habit of happiness in
work.--Beveridge.
Very few voices but sound repellent under violent exertion.--Lessing.
Whatever in this world one has to say, there is a word, and just one
word, to express it. Seek that out and use it.--De Maupassant.
Yes, yes; believe me, you must draw your pen
Not once, nor twice, but o'er and o'er again
Through what you've written, if you would entice
The man who reads you once to read you twice.
-Horace (Conington, Tr.)
Zeal with scanty capacity often accomplishes more than capacity with no
zeal at all.--George Eliot.