Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and… — Walter Benjamin Copy Share Image
Because I write a book a year, I always want to do one other project every year that's stimulating in a different… — Denise Mina Copy Share Image
I am far less interested in serving as a change agent than in functioning as a prose artist, whether it's fiction or… — James Howard Kunstler Copy Share Image
In some sense, prose fiction is just a way of unlocking a space. If I can unlock the space, it comes out… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
I don't dream songs. I'm more apt to write dreams down and then to be able to interpret them into a song.… — Judy Collins Copy Share Image
Mother Dolores Hart's prose is a reflection of the inner beauty she has always possessed. A fascinating read... and read again! — Robert Evans Copy Share Image
I write a book at least three times-once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to… — Bernard Malamud Copy Share Image
Whatever brief delights it provides, mere strangeness in poetry and prose eventually leaves us cold, especially when we suspect the writer is… — Roger Rosenblatt Copy Share Image
“He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my head, and though he said he’d come back one day I… — Charlotte Eriksson Copy Share Image
Reading, at the deepest level, is a physical experience. Most people are not attuned to this, most people don't learn how to… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
One of the interesting things about the history of poetry in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries is that people who read… — Robert Hass Copy Share Image
Juliet is one of those rare novels that has it all: lush prose, tightly intertwined parallel narratives, intrigue, and historical detail all… — Sara Gruen Copy Share Image
You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the… — Will Self Copy Share Image
“Prose fiction is something you build up from twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using… — Neil Gaiman Copy Share Image
The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in… — Julianna Baggott Copy Share Image
“[The] defining characteristics of good prose [are]: a preference for short sentences diversified by an occasionally very long one; a tone that… — F.W. Bateson Copy Share Image
“if the rain you left behind for me to deal with taught me anything in this life, it would be that after… — Hannah Cao Copy Share Image
I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a… — Lynn Abbey Copy Share Image
I would never write realistic prose. I don't like people who try to write in a poetic style, but in the course… — Marguerite Young Copy Share Image
“The one thing Leonard won't tolerate is fancy prose. As he states in his 10 Rules of Writing: "If it sounds like… — Elmore Leonard Copy Share Image
That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and… — Henry Purcell Copy Share Image
“You can talk forever about style, technique and beautiful prose...in the final analysis one thing matters above all else - is it… — Jamie Holoran Copy Share Image
To my mind, the prose in a non-fiction work that's going to endure has to be of the same quality as the… — Robert Caro Copy Share Image
Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate… — Lord Byron Copy Share Image
It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated.… — Boris Pasternak Copy Share Image
Give your main clause a little space. Prose is not like boxing; the skilled writer deliberately telegraphs his punch, knowing that the… — William Safire Copy Share Image
Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace… — J. K. Rowling Copy Share Image
The short story feels like the most natural length for prose fiction, or certainly for the kind of ideas and situations I… — Nicholas Royle Copy Share Image
I don't write out of fear. I write out of a strong urge to meet death on its own eternal terms, because… — Anthony Burgess Copy Share Image
When prose gets too stylized and out of control - and Stein is sometimes a good example - when you don't know… — Rick Moody Copy Share Image
I think my prose - mine and that of others - sometimes slips into a cadence or rhythm that can replicate or… — Pattiann Rogers Copy Share Image
“It could have been so beautiful. The way I learned and got free and swore to never love another person ever again… — Charlotte Eriksson Copy Share Image
I don't do much of anything consciously in writing - in poetry writing, anyway, prose usually being a different matter, of course. — Ron Padgett Copy Share Image
“I am not collarbones or drunken letters never sent. I am not the way I leave or left or didn’t know how… — Charlotte Eriksson Copy Share Image
I love seeing the light go on in aspiring writers' eyes when you point out ways to improve their prose or their… — F. Paul Wilson Copy Share Image
What is important-what lasts-in another language is not what is said but what is written. For the essence of an age, we… — Peter Brodie Copy Share Image
Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is… — Edgar Allan Poe Copy Share Image
I would say that when I write prose I'm a more socially responsible person. I'm much more a citizen of the world.… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
We speak of memorizing as getting something 'by heart,' which really means 'by head.' But getting a poem or prose passage truly… — John Hollander Copy Share Image
![“[The] defining characteristics of good prose [are]: a preference for short sentences diversified by an occasionally very long one; a tone that is relaxed and almost colloquial; a large vocabulary that enjoys exploiting the different etymological and social levels of words; and an insistence on…” quote by F.W. Bateson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7af/f-w-bateson-237073_language_the-defining-characteristics-of-good-pro_2171085.jpg)
