“When we know something well, we don't realize how abstractly we think about it. And we forget that other people, who have lived their own lives, have not gone through our idiosyncratic histories of abstractification.”— Steven Pinker, amazon.comTagged: Abstractification, Curse of Knowledge, Personal History
“Classic style is not the only way to write. But it's an ideal that can pull writers away from many of their worst habits, and it works particularly well because it makes the unnatural act of writing seem like two of our most natural acts: talking and seeing.”— Steven Pinker, amazon.comTagged: Writing Strategies, Classic Style
“Language is not a protocol legislated by an authority but rather a wiki that pools the contributions of millions of writers and speakers, who ceaselessly bend the language to their needs and who inexorably age, die, and get replaced by their children, who adapt the language in their turn.”— Steven Pinker, amazon.comTagged: Adaptability, Authority, Change, Evolution, Language
“Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose.”— Steven Pinker, amazon.comTagged: Prose, Writing