March 18, 2009

QOTD:

“ I can’t think of a better reason for paying close attention to the construction and flow of every single sentence. Ugly sentences, the ones that don’t scan, the ones that the reader stumbles over? No less than a failure of meaning. The instinct might be to fix the sentence: rewrite it till it flows. I’d suggest stopping and thinking and getting clarity on what it is you are trying to say before you do that. As Flaubert says: The word is never lacking when one possesses the idea. Find the idea and the words should, in theory, take care of themselves.
Luc Sante and Flaubert: Language, Meaning, and Process « Boolah