Death to the adjective! (Or so say some of the great writers)

When you catch an adjective, kill it. 
~ MARK TWAIN

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The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.
 ~ CLIFTON FADIMAN

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The adjective is the enemy of the noun.
~ VOLTAIRE

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If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective.
~ J. ANTHONY LUKAS

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Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please will you do my job for me?”
~ C.S. LEWIS

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Forward motion in any piece of writing is carried by verbs. Verbs are the action words of the language and the most important. Turn to any passage on any page of a successful novel and notice the high percentage of verbs. Beginning writers always use too many adjectives and adverbs and generally use too many dependent clauses. Count your words and words of verbal force (like that word “force” I just used).
~ WILLIAM SLOANE

• This is just a tiny sample of the wealth of writerly wisdom available on possibly the best website ever for writers looking for advice, "Advice to Writers", curated by author Jon Winokur. (Winokur also has an interesting post on Huffington Post on the best books on writing books. Check it out here.)

• ALSO READ: "Too many adjectives, adverbs, and subsidiary clauses are the death of good writing"

Too many adjectives, adverbs, and subsidiary clauses are the death of good writing

Alexander McCall Smith has a pet peeve: Overwriting.

The author of more than 60 books, including the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, McCall Smith wrote in a column in The Wall Street Journal that for "some people... the temptation to overindulge is just too great". The result, he says, is the use of too many adjectives, adverbs, and subsidiary clauses. 

He continues:

Such writing then begins to sound contrived. Nobody uses large numbers of adjectives when they think, and I believe that writing which one cannot actually think can very easily look wrong on the page.

The real aim, of course, is conciseness. Concise prose knows what it wants to say, and says it. It does not embellish, except occasionally, and then for dramatic effect.

Now consider this quote by George Orwell, who was also, rightly, obsessed with conciseness in writing:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

And here's William Strunk, Jr., of Strunk & White fame, expressing himself firmly on the same subject:

Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

'Nuff said? 

• Read Alexander McCall Smith's column in its entirety here: "Block That Adjective!"