When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.'  I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. 

- George Orwell

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 
1. What am I trying to say? 
2. What words will express it? 
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language