Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Adjectives and Adverbs
The Other Man: Conversations with Graham Greene by Marie-Francoise Allain, tr. Guido Waldman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 123 (Greene speaking):
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Adjectives are to be avoided unless they are strictly necessary; adverbs too, which is even more important. When I open a book and find that so and so has 'answered sharply' or 'spoken tenderly', I shut it again: it's the dialogue itself which should express the sharpness or the tenderness without any need to use adverbs to underline them.
