A damn good sentence

I love a damn good sentence. I get excited when I read a sentence that flows easily - like the perfect harmony.

Here are three quotes about sentences and how a damn good sentence is damn good style.

Francine Prose (from Reading Like a Writer):

“A close reading of a single passage, a single paragraph, even a single sentence, will reveal far more about a writer’s intentions and achievements than will a reading of an entire work.”

Virginia Woolf (from A Writer’s Diary):

“Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand, here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A writer’s job is to find it.”

Annie Dillard (from The Writing Life):

“He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know.”