Thursday, April 11, 2019

Quote of the Day (Garry Wills, on One Cause of the Deterioration in Writing)


“One of the causes of the deterioration in writing is that it’s not done for the ear. I’ve had very articulate students hand in muddled and inconsequent papers. Then I ask them to read their papers aloud and they realize that the sentences don’t really connect or that parts are not in any intelligible order, because they have not in any way thought of writing as a sound.” —Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist Garry Wills interviewed by Cal Fussman for “The Men of Our Time,” Esquire, October 2015

(Photo of Garry Wills by Lauren Gerson, taken on March 10, 2015 at the LBJ Presidential Library, where he was joining the Friends of the LBJ Library to discuss his book, "The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis.")

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