"It was the kind of crazy idea that Alberto Colzi would never have approved in the old mindset." It's a sentence on which a story pivots. There was an old mindset, and now there is a new one. There's an idea on the table, and it's crazy. One man gets to decide. Things are not usually so portentous in corporate writing.
"Complexity never sleeps." Admittedly, I'm a sucker for assigning human characteristics to abstract nouns. I also carry around with me a few Neil Young influences.
"The Gooley Club, on Third Lake in the Essex Chain, is six miles from the nearest road." It's about the specificity: Gooley Club. Third Lake. Essex Chain. Six miles. We're painting a picture of a real outpost in the middle of a managed forest that provides pulp for a paper mill. The club is run by and for conservationists. They serve as "extra eyes and ears" to monitor the well-being of the forest. You should feel good about buying your paper from this mill.
"We have this orphan drug for this orphan disease." Words matter. When you're given a word like "orphan," run with it. It is actually a technical term in the pharmaceutical industry, dating back to and before The Orphan Drug Act of 1983. Nevertheless, a word like "orphan" goes straight to a place we all want to reach as writers.
"To have adjusted so quickly and effectively in mid-course is an indication, in my judgment, of the outstanding financial discipline, operational agility and managerial commitment we have in our company." You don't see the beauty in that? It's in the stability of "financial discipline," "operational agility" and "managerial commitment." You're looking at word pairs of 19 characters, 18 characters and 20 characters. Substitute a shorter word anywhere in the triad, or insert an extra word, and the beauty is gone.
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