Prose Quotes

473 Prose quotes by 367 unique authors

The only valid reason to use clichés is in the speech of a character. Cliches are indications of sloppy writing. The writer does not respect… — Leonard Bishop
A dog, I have always said, is prose; a cat is a poem. — Jean Burden
On May 15, 1957 Linus Pauling made an extraordinary speech to the students of Washington University. ... It was at this time that the idea… — Edward Condon
Like Molière's M. Jourdain, who spoke prose all his life without knowing it, mathematicians have been reasoning for at least two millennia without being aware… — Ernest Nagel
Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern… — Thomas Stearns Eliot
What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! ... Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules &… — Mark Twain
The novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it. — Randall Jarrell
The prose as such has to be singing the song the story is telling. — Leonard Michaels
There was no really good true war book during the entire four years of the war. The only true writing that came through during the… — Ernest Hemingway
In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the… — Ben Bova
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the… — Ernest Hemingway
An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one's own prose. — Barbara Tuchman
Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you… — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging… — Lynn Abbey
In the big picture I write for an audience of people I've never met. By the final draft I'm looking for anything in the prose… — Lionel Shriver
Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the… — William Zinsser
Details are the Life of Prose. — Jack Kerouac
In the camp, this meant committing my verse-many thousands of lines-to memory. To help me with this I improvised decimal counting beads and, in transit… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
There are few greater treasures to be acquired in youth than great poetry-and prose-stored in the memory. At the time one may resent the labor… — Richard Livingstone
I assure you, my children, that when a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of… — Josemaria Escriva
I fear I have not one good word to say this fair morning, though the sun shines so encouragingly on the distant hills and gentle… — Margaret Fuller
If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got to find a language. Which goes… — Salman Rushdie
The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to… — Ernest Hemingway
My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director. ... (when asked who wrote 'Some Enchanted Evening') Rodgers and Hammerstein, if you can imagine… — Cole Porter
Eva Stachniak has given readers a thrilling glimpse into the scandals and secrets at the heart of the Russian Imperial court. With deft prose and… — Deanna Raybourn

Who Wrote These Prose Quotes

367 authors contributed a total of 473 Prose Quotes, led by these top contributors: