Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing becomes clearer and more effective after one has completed a draft and can reflect on it.
Mark Twain highlights the importance of reflection in the writing process. He suggests that the best time to start formalizing an article is after one has completed a draft, as it allows the writer to achieve clarity and articulate their thoughts more logically and coherently. This process emphasizes the value of revising and comprehending what one truly wants to communicate before finalizing the work.
Themes
WritingReflectionRevisionClarityCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
A writer discussing their process at a workshop might use this quote to emphasize the importance of drafts.
More from Mark Twain
All quotes βThe easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
Mark TwainRead
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
Mark TwainRead
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark TwainRead
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark TwainRead
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark TwainRead
Similar quotes
We say women have made great strides: in biology, in many areas of chemistry, in many places, women are now the majority of medical students. But when I began my career, that wasn't the case. There were very strong stereotypes in biology and medicine.
Carol S. DweckRead
In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.
Earl WarrenRead
Read the Bible, read the Bible! Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses, I seldom read any other book, and I as rarely felt the want of any other.
William WilberforceRead
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit
Seneca The YoungerRead
Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature.
Harper LeeRead
Young children possess the ability to cut across the customary categories; to appreciate usually undiscerned links among realms, to respond effectively in a parallel manner to events which are usually categorized differently, and to capture these ori
Howard GardnerRead