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Arthur Quiller-Couch Quotes

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

Arthur Quiller-Couch
Writing, Pieces, Crafts
On the Art of Writing "On Style" (1916)

We make our discoveries through our mistakes: we watch one another's success: and where there is freedom to experiment there is hope to improve.

Arthur Quiller-Couch
Mistake, Discovery, Watches
Arthur Quiller-Couch (2016). “On The Art of Reading”, p.8, Youcanprint

If your language is confused, your intellect, if not your whole character, will almost certainly correspond.

Arthur Quiller-Couch
Confused, Character, Language

O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm Of green days telling with a quiet beat.

Arthur Quiller-Couch
Heart, Green, England
'Ode upon Eckington Bridge'

You can see the meaning of the statement that "Literature is a living art" most easily and clearly, perhaps, by contrasting Science and Art at their two extremes - say Pure Mathematics and Acting. Science as a rule deals with things, Art with man's thought and emotion about things.

Arthur Quiller-Couch
Art, Men, Two

I am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the Muse's lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation.

Arthur Quiller-Couch
Fall, Thrill, Lips
"The Oxford Book of English Verse". Book edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch, Introduction, 1900.

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