Every writer has a lifetime ration of three exclamation points. Use them sparingly.

Quote Investigator traces the rule to 1979, with versions later attributed to William Maxwell, Elmore Leonard, and others — a tradition of editorial advice rather than a single line. The number itself isn’t the point; it’s the discipline of treating ! as something earned, not strewn. A surprisingly useful constraint to carry into email and Slack, where the exclamation mark has lost most of its bite.