“A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the
reader’s way and makes it plain; a close approximation to it will answer, and
much traveling is done in a well-enough fashion by its help, but we do not
welcome it and applaud it and rejoice in it as we do when the right one blazes
out on us. . . .
“The resulting effect is physical as well as
spiritual, and electrically prompt; it tingles exquisitely around the walls of
the mouth and tastes as tart and crisp and good as the autumn-butter that
creams the sumac berry.”
—Mark Twain (1835-1910), writer and lecturer, in an essay, “William Dean Howells,”
1906.
• Editorial Comment: Rub the right words together, and
you can make fire.
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“I don’t think writers are sacred,
but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right
order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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