Strunk and White
Omit needless words.

Matthew Arnold
People think I can teach them style. What stuff it is. Have something to say and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.

F.W. Bateson
[The] defining characteristics of good prose [are]: a preference for short sentences diversified by an occasionally very long one; a tone that is relaxed and almost colloquial; a large vocabulary that enjoys exploiting the different etymological and social levels of words; and an insistence on verbal and logical precision.

Bebe Moore Campbell
I always employ music in my books. I’m always looking for rhythm, looking for a click in my head. I listen to a lot of music. I am passionate about a lot of singers, and I try to infuse my books with the passion that the best singers had.

William Cobbett
Never put an "it" upon paper without thinking well of what you are about. When I see many "it"s on a page, I always tremble for the writer.

William Faulkner
Read, read, read. Read everything-trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.

Benjamin Franklin
Good writing “should proceed regularly from things known to things unknown, distinctly and clearly without confusion. The words used should be the most expressive that the language affords, provided that they are the most generally understood. Nothing should be expressed in two words that can be as well expressed in one; that is, no synonemes should be used, or very rarely, but the whole words should be as short as possible, consistent with clearness; the words should be so placed as to be agreeable to the ear; summarily it should be smooth, clear and short, for the contrary qualities are displeasing"

Ernest Hemingway
Write when there is something that you know; and not before; and not too damned much after.

Henry James
Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost.

Barney Kilgore, Wall Street Journal
The easiest thing for the reader to do is to quit reading.

Fran Lebowitz
In conversation you can use timing, a look, an inflection. But on the page all you have is commas, dashes, the amount of syllables in a word. When I write, I read everything out loud to get the right rhythm.

Thomas Mann
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Somerset Maugham
Good prose should resemble the conversation of a well-bred man.

Vladimir Nabokov
My pencils outlast their erasers.

Vladimir Nabokov
The good reader is one who has imagination, memory. a dictionary, and some artistic sense.

Jonathan Raban
A good sentence alters the world.

William Safire
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

Paul Sann, New York Post
And don't you ever use the [expletive deleted] word "tragedy" again. You tell what happened, and let the reader say it's a tragedy. If you're crying, the reader won't. (Quoted by Pete Hamill.)

George Santayana
The word "is" has its tragedies. It names and identifies things with the greatest innocence, and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger.

Red Smith
"Myself" is the foxhole of ignorance where cowards take refuge because they were taught that "me" is vulgar and "I" is egtotistical.

William Trevor
I write out of curiosity and bewilderment.

Calvin Trillin
As far as I'm concerned, "whom" is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.

Kurt Vonnegut
Your own winning literary style must begin with interesting ideas in your head. Find a subject you care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

Virginia Woolf
Style is a simple matter; it is all rhythm.