Bird Quote by John James Audubon

“As you no doubt gathered, I do not devote the care to word selection and organization in my letters that I do in my…

— Janet Malcolm

You must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable-nay, letter by letter... you…

— John Ruskin

My brain is dull, my sight is foul, I cannot write a verse, or read-- Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl, And let us…

— Thomas Hood

“[E]very man hath liberty to write, but few ability. Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base…

— Robert Burton

“One ought to know everything, to write. All of us scribblers are monstrously ignorant. If only we weren’t lacking in stamina, what a rich…

— Gustave Flaubert

We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure…

— Robert Falcon Scott

“use words that fit the context, to learn when to use high-flown language and when to use down-home words, and generally quit putting on…

— Kory Stamper

“[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin…

— Winston Churchill

The worst letters come from retired high school English teachers. They will literally take a book and pick it to pieces and send me…

— John Grisham

“The life these words speak of is not worth the ink they are written in.... He now knows that the only words worth writing…

— Andreï Makine

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to…

— George Orwell

“The irony of this endeavor is palpable, for English itself is a hopeless hodgepodge of other tongues, with more exceptions than rules, more chaos…

— George Takei