“Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating.”

“Rather, very, little, pretty -- these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then. ”

“Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable.”

“Never call a stomach a tummy without good reason.”

“...when a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.”

“Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.”

“Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.”