Mark Twain Quotes on Writing
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The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.
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Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it.
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I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I'm not feeling so well myself.
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A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.
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Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR.
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You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
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Herodotus says, 'Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects'.
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The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.
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If you would have your fiction live forever, you must neither overtly preach nor overtly teach; but you must covertly preach and covertly teach.
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Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'.
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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.
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I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I did not have time to make it shorter.