Mark Twains
Views on Writing
On the
Writing Craft
When you catch an adjective, kill it.
Mark Twain
A successful book is not made of what is in
it, but what is left out of it. Mark Twain
What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for
the conveying of a great thought! ... Prose wanders around with a lantern
& laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars
of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, &
lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash. Mark Twain
The funniest things are the forbidden. ...
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal
the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about
it. Mark Twain
The time to begin writing an article is when
you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly
and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say. Mark Twain
I notice that you use plain, simple language,
short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English it
is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers
and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't
mean utterly, but kill most of them then the rest will be valuable. They
weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide
apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened
upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice. Mark Twain
You need not expect to get your book right
the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits
his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention.
These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader
ceases to get under the bed, by and by. Mark Twain
The difference between the right word and the
almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning
bug. Mark Twain
On Editors
and Critics
How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon
once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But
we remember with charity, that his intentions were good. Mark Twain
No man has an appreciation so various that
his judgment is good upon all varieties of literary work. Mark Twain
The public is the only critic whose opinion
is worth anything at all. Mark Twain
The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug:
he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch
it. Mark Twain
On Reading
It makes one hope and believe that a day will
come when, in the eye of the law, literary property will be as sacred as
whiskey, or any other of the necessaries of life. It grieves me to think
how far more profound and reverent a respect the law would have for literature
if a body could only get drunk on it. Mark Twain
I don't believe any of you have ever read Paradise
Lost, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want to take
on trust. It's a classic ... Something that everybody wants to have read
and nobody wants to read. Mark Twain
There is only one expert who is qualified to
examine the souls and the life of a people and make a valuable report
the native novelist. ... And when a thousand able novels have been written,
there you have the soul of the people; and not anywhere else can these
be had. Mark Twain
I have no liking for novels or stories-none
in the world; and so, whenever I read one which is not oftener than once
in two years, and even in these same cases I seldom read beyond the middle
of the book my distaste for the vehicle always taints my judgment of
the literature itself, as a matter of course; and also of course makes
my verdict valuless. Are you saying "You have written stories yourself."
Quite true: but the fact that an Indian likes to scalp people is no evidence
that he likes to be scalped. Mark Twain
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap.
A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady
it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane.
And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing
in the world to throw at a noisy cat. Mark Twain
On the
Writers Life
An artist is a creature driven by demons. He
doesnt know why they choose him and hes usually too busy to wonder why.
He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from
anybody and everybody to get the work done . ... If a writer has to rob
his mother, he will not hesitate; the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any
number of old ladies. Mark Twain
Write without pay until someone offers pay.
If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this as
a sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for. Mark Twain
I will now claim until dispossesed that
I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to literature.
... The early machine was full of caprices, full of defects- devilish ones.
It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After
a year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought
I would give it to Howells. ... He took it home to Boston, and my morals
began to improve, but his have never recovered. Mark Twain
I have been an author for 20 years and
an ass for 55. Mark Twain
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries
disappear and life stands explained. Mark Twain
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