Quotes about Technical Writing

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Aitch
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Quotes about Technical Writing

Unread post by Aitch »

Stumbled upon this and thought - How can I not share it with my fellow writers? Enjoy! :)

I like writing down quotes and one-liners because they sometimes help reaffirm what I’m thinking and feeling. Also, all the best ideas come from the ancients, don’t they? Here are some *hopefully* great quotes that can be applied to technical writing:

"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion." - Winston Churchill

"This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read." - Winston Churchill

"Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid" - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter." - Blaise Pascal

"It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way." - Ernest Hemingway

"There is no great writing, only great rewriting." - Justice Brandeis

"No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft." - H.G. Wells

“Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” - Mark Twain

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” - Mark Twain

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” - Anton Chekhov

“A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.” - Karl Kraus

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.” - Joseph Heller

“If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.” - Don Marquis

I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. ~Author Unknown

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one. ~Baltasar Gracián

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. ~Jules Renard, Journal, 10 April 1895


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deepika_p
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Re: Quotes about Technical Writing

Unread post by deepika_p »

awesome post. Thanks for sharing!
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Tim Green
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Re: Quotes about Technical Writing

Unread post by Tim Green »

Great quotes, thanks a lot! By the way, one of the best books I have ever read about good writing is Steven King's "On Writing". You can say what you like about his books and that he writes too much, but he clearly knows how to communicate successfully to a wide audience. :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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