E. B. White - The Elements of Style (1920)

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The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.

E. B. White
There is simply a better chance of doing well if the writer holds a steady course, enters the stream of English quietly, and does not thrash about.

E. B. White
A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning.

E. B. White
When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.

E. B. White
All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation-it is the Self-escaping into the open.

E. B. White
Interesting. An unconvincing word; avoid it as a means of introduction. Instead of announcing that what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so... Also to be avoided in introduction is the word funny. Nothing becomes funny by being labeled so.

E. B. White
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White
In dialogue, make sure that your attributives do not awkwardly interrupt a spoken sentence. Place them where the breath would come naturally in speech-that is, where the speaker would pause for emphasis, or take a breath. The best test for locating an attributive is to speak the sentence aloud.

E. B. White
A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.

E. B. White
A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole, and a carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for the reader, the object of the writer's enthusiasm.

E. B. White
A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up. Like other gunners, the writer must cultivate patience, working many covers to bring down one partridge.

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Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.

E. B. White
The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.

E. B. White
Will felt that the reader was in serious trouble most of the time, floundering in a swamp, and that it was the duty of anyone attempting to write English to drain this swamp quickly and get his man up on dry ground, or at least throw him a rope.

E. B. White
Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.

E. B. White
The adjective hasn't yet been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.

E. B. White
I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

E. B. White
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 separate entity; is nondetachable, unfilterable.

E. B. White
Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

E. B. White
Writing is, for most, laborious and slow. The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by.

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Nauseous. Nauseated. The first means "sickening to contemplate"; the second means "sick at the stomach." Do not, therefore, say "I feel nauseous," unless you are sure you have that effect on others.

E. B. White
There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rules by which the young writer may steer his course. He will often find himself steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.

E. B. White