Rewrite and revise. Do not be afraid to seize what you have and cut it to ribbons ... Good writing means good revising..

The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity..

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary l….

Every writer, by the way he uses the language, reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacities, his bias....Avoid the elaborate, the pret….

The surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definitive, and concrete. The greatest writers - Homer, Dante, Sh….

It is worse to be irresolute than to be wrong..

To acquire style, begin by affecting none..

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 p….

Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so..

None are so fallible as those who are sure they're right..

In his Philosophy of Style, Herbert Spencer gives two sentences to illustrate how the vague and general can be turned into the vivid and particular: ….

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!.

Vigorous writing is concise..

A dash is a mark of separation stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses..

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 ….

...when a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor..

Rather, very, little, pretty - these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective lit….

Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language..

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, h….

Opinions scattered indiscriminately about leave the mark of egotism..

Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating..