Joseph Joubert Writing Quotations

Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader.

Words, like glass, obscure when they do not aid vision.

If you're very serious about writing it's helpful to find an agent. It's becoming more and more competitive to have your manuscript even looked at by an editor. Many companies don't accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore, so they'll pay more attention to something that comes in through an agent.

A couple of pieces of advice for the kids who are serious about writing are: first of all, to read everything you can get your hands on so you can become familiar with different forms of writing: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism. That's very important. And also keep a journal. Not so much, because it's good writing practice. Although it is, but more because it's a wonderful source of story starters.

A fluent writer always seems more talented than he is. To write well, one needs a natural felicity and an acquired difficulty.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

The voice is a human sound which nothing inanimate can perfectly imitate. It has an authority and an insinuating property which writing lacks. It is not merely so much air, but air modulated and impregnated with life.

Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.

Music has seven letters, writing has twenty-six notes

Before you use a fancy word, make room for it.