Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions of musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious, where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view.
I let Brel into my world. What I like about him is the simplicity of his language. It's not so simple to be simple.
I am not a person who will mince words.
Useful though they are, the vast majority of dictionaries and encyclopedias are poker-faced pieces of work that stick to the facts and present them as soberly - and unstylishly - as possible.
Australians are pretty blunt and we say things how they really are.
Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium. Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are, the more necessary it is to be plain.
Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.
I'm a plain speaker.
John Bunyan, while he had a surpassing genius, would not condescend to cull his language from the garden of flowers; but he went into the hayfield and the meadow, and plucked up his language by the roots, and spoke out in the words that the people used in their cottages.
