Murder your darlings.
The quotation from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's On the Art of Writing goes like this:
"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."
Which is, more or less, against unnecessary flourishes distracting the reader's attention from the essence of your text.
Roy Blount Jr., in whose Alphabet Juice I actually came across this quotation, then goes on to point out that the very punchline can, perhaps, be described as Sir Arthur's darling, and where would he be if he hadn't after all used it? Well. To err is... you know.
But the one thing I want to note is that this guideline is doubly, triply important for translators. Useless ornamentation when you're the original author may hurt your style, but you'll take the blame and suffer yourself; whereas if you show off using someone else's ideas and name and hurt their style, there's no hell too hot for you.
"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."
Which is, more or less, against unnecessary flourishes distracting the reader's attention from the essence of your text.
Roy Blount Jr., in whose Alphabet Juice I actually came across this quotation, then goes on to point out that the very punchline can, perhaps, be described as Sir Arthur's darling, and where would he be if he hadn't after all used it? Well. To err is... you know.
But the one thing I want to note is that this guideline is doubly, triply important for translators. Useless ornamentation when you're the original author may hurt your style, but you'll take the blame and suffer yourself; whereas if you show off using someone else's ideas and name and hurt their style, there's no hell too hot for you.