Five common traits of good writers: (1) They have something to say. (2) They read widely and have done so since childhood. (3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a "capacity for clear thought," able to go from point to… — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
Astrology is the sheerest hokum. This pseudoscience has been around since the day of the Chaldeans and Babylonians. It is as phony as numerology,… — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
Good similes depend upon close observation. They depend upon brevity and wit…They have to fit in context. — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
The chief difference between good writing and better writing may be measured by the number of imperceptible hesitations the reader experiences as he goes… — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
Louis Kelso's formula sounds like Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. The whole theory sounds crazy. But, then, one may recall, they said all that of… — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
Find out where the people want to go, then hustle yourself around in front of them. — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
...The ...experts of the FDA have declared Laetrile to be worthless...quackery and fraud...These experts are the professional descendants of experts...confident that mental illness should… — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
Writers must rely more on the feel of a sentence than on the dictates of a rule book. — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
Use familiar words-words that your readers will understand, and not words they will have to look up. No advice is more elementary, and no… — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
Baseball ought never be hurried. It is the only unhurried institution we have left, which is one reason, I think, we love it. — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
It wasn't the Supreme Court that expelled God from our public school classrooms. It was the textbook publishers. — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
If you would write emotionally, be first unemotional. If you would move your readers to tears, do not let them see you cry. — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
