Truth be told, we wish it would be, clearly and bluntly

Candy-coating a message is no better than dipping it in poison

What writers write, whether they are newspaper people, novelists, or organizational journalists, will carry the most authority when they say something that needs to be said and not what others think should be said or what they think others think should be said.

The reason that most of us repeat endlessly only what others think we should say (without ourselves completely realizing we are doing so) is that we have not looked into ourselves deeply enough, have not thought clearly enough, and, finally, have been afraid.

We have been afraid to say clearly and forcibly what must be said, because we are tyrannized by the conventions that have preceded us. In our day-to-day work we often skirt issues, gingerly couching them in faultlessly diplomatic sentences from which all the truth has been drained by tact.