When Sir Arthur Quiller‑Couch told writers back in 1916, “Murder your darlings,” he wasn’t urging literary bloodshed for sport. He was offering a practical warning about vanity disguised as brilliance. By his terms, a darling is a sentence, an image, or a turn of phrase you love—not because it strengthens the work but because it flatters you.
His point, stripped to the bone: judge by purpose, not by pride. If a line exists mainly to show off your sparkle, cut it. Quiller‑Couch didn’t oppose beauty but self‑regard. Grace in prose is good. Narcissism is death.
Fondness is the giveaway. The more fiercely you defend a questionable passage—rereading it aloud, shielding it from the delete key—the more it probably needs to go. Once the darling dies, the writing breathes again: it moves more quickly, hits harder, and sounds true instead of theatrical.