Top Ten Quotes: Write Better
One of the more enjoyable books I read this year was Andrew Le Peau’s Write Better: A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality. Writers: you need this book. People who don’t view yourself as a writer: you need this book. Le Peau has something to offer all of us, whether you’re trying to craft the great American novel or cobble together your next email.
And did I mention it’s enjoyable? Whatever you’re thinking when you’re thinking of reading a book about writing, knock it off. It’s funny and poignant and reflective and inspirational…sometimes in the same chapter. And Le Peau should get bonus points for the writing examples that he included. I have an entirely new list of books and authors I now want to read.
Here are my top ten favorite quotes:
- …throw away your first three paragraphs. Your piece probably begins with the fourth.
- …if we feel strongly that others should think the way we do – for their own good – and we can’t persuade them or manipulate them, then only the third option is left: coercion.
- Perhaps the first rule of public speaking and writing is to tell stories. Facts touch our minds. Stories touch our whole person…Stories tell us who we were, who we are, and who we can be.
- Fear and perfectionism, two of the most common obstacles, are an accomplished dance pair. They reinforce one another in seamless motion.
- Openings motivate readers to keep going. Strong endings stay with people after they finish.
- Innovation almost always involves building on the past.
- The most powerful and memorable stories, the most powerful and memorable prose, are those in which the tone communicates emotionally the very substance of the writer’s theme. Tone is perhaps the single most important element in the art of writing.
- Don’t say a story will be sad or happy or startling. That inoculates the reader against sadness or happiness or shock. Just tell the story.
- …paralysis is not the problem but the opposite – perpetual motion. We never stop preparing to actually write.
- If you write, you’re a writer.
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