“My reading is slowed down even further by my being
a writer. Most reasonably scrupulous people reading a sentence take the
following quick inventory: Was it clear? Correct? Precise? Interesting? If they
have the least esthetic sense, they will perhaps add, Beautiful? But the
writer, when confronted with an interesting or beautiful sentence, must ask two
other questions: First, How was it done? Second, How, properly camouflaged,
might its magic be stolen for my own writing? This, too, can slow a fellow
down.”—American essayist and editor Joseph Epstein, “Stop and Smell the Prose,” The
Weekly Standard, Jan. 18, 1999
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