Style Guides Quotes & Sayings

Horror need not always be a long-fanged gentleman in evening clothes or a dismembered corpse or a doctor who keeps a brain in his gold fish bowl. It may be a warm sunny day, the innocence of girlhood and hints of unexplored sexuality that combine to produce a euphoria so intense it becomes transporting, a state beyond life or death. Such horror is unspeakable not because it is gruesome but because it remains outside the realm of things that can be easily defined or explained in conventional ways. — Vincent Canby

We know Roger Ebert loved the 'Sun-Times' and his career as a newspaper columnist. But ironically, it was his illness and losing his voice that caused him to explore another venue. — Bill Kurtis

It's wisest always to be so clad that our friends need not ask us for our names. — James Fenimore Cooper

So which guideline should a writer follow, "Avoid elegant variation" or "Don't use a word twice on one page"? Traditional style guides don't resolve the contradiction, but psycholinguistics can help. Wording should not be varied capriciously, because in general people assume that if someone uses two different words they're referring to two different things. And as we shall soon see, wording should never be varied when a writer is comparing or contrasting two things. But wording should be varied when an entity is referred to multiple times in quick succession and repeating the name would sound monotonous or would misleadingly suggest that a new actor had entered the scene. — Steven Pinker

One Is Never Over-Dressed OR Understand With A Little Black Dress By Karl Lagerfeld — Karl Lagerfeld

To attempt to build up theories of art, or to form a new style, would be an act of supreme folly. It would be at once to reject the experiences and accumulated knowledge of thousands of years. On the contrary, we should regard as our inheritance all the successful labours of the past, not blindly following them, but employ simply as guides to find the true path. — Owen Jones Classics

I shouldn't brag, but I'm one of the top experts in my field."
She swallowed. "Of shark sex, you mean."
"Well, that, too. Anything you want to know on the subject, Sharona ... anything"
he pulled back a sexy half grin
"I'd be happy to enlighten you. — Ophelia London

Style and voice are different. Style is standard conventions of writing; voice is the distinct way an individual puts words together. All good writers have a near-uniform understanding of style, but a voice all their own. — Naveed Saleh

The regular hours necessary to be observed by those who follow country business, are perhaps of more consequence than any of the other articles, however important those may be. — William Falconer

And what is it we give our children anyway, except the ability to not become us? — Colum McCann

In fact, these reference works, with their careful attention to history, literature, and actual usage, are the most adamant debunkers of grammatical nonsense. (This is less true of style sheets drawn up by newspapers and professional societies, and of manuals written by amateurs such as critics and journalists, which tend to mindlessly reproduce the folklore of previous guides.) — Steven Pinker

In a world without air all you breathe is adventure! — Helen Dunmore