Quotes About Conciseness

I write scenes - often quite long scenes - mainly because I still get seduced into writing six lines where one and a half will do.

I do try and keep my scripts quite economical.

If a scene is longer than three pages, it better be for a good reason.

Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for every distinct idea and thought would require a vast vocabulary. The problem in language is to express many ideas and thoughts with comparatively few words.

I feel 'The Night Circus' has a complete story arc in one book. I like it as a single volume. It feels complete to me, and I wouldn't want to stretch it out into something it's not.

I know I have a problem with semi-colon abuse and have written page-long sentences. Nobody needs to be reading page-long sentences, at least not written by me.

With short stories, you can always see the whole, but it's just so hard to get everything you want into that small form.

People barely have anything to say in 140 characters. The last thing we need is a bunch of discursive rambling on Twitter.

When you are explaining, you're losing...

Desvario laborioso e empobrecedor é o de compor vastos livros; o de espraiar por quinhentas páginas uma ideia cuja perfeita exposição oral cabe em poucos minutos.

Omettere sempre una parola, ricorrere a metafore inette e a perifrasi evidenti, é forse il modo piú enfatico di indicarla.

The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary.

Nouns are abbreviations. Instead of saying cold, sharp, burning, unbreakable, shining, pointy, we utter dagger; - Verbiage for Poems

Alc?tuirea de c?rÅ£i vaste este o nes?buin?? obositoare ÅŸi aduc?toare de s?r?cie; s? întinzi pe cinci sute de pagini o idee a c?rei perfect? expunere oral? încape în cîteva cuvinte

He has a splendid repertoire of 500 words. Why does he insist on using only 150?

There is nothing worse than a long, rambling text from a collaborator who uses a whole page to say what can be written in a few lines."

While in the case of his iron money, as I have explained, Lycurgus arranged for heavy weight to be matched by low value, he did the opposite for the currency of speech. Here he developed the technique of expressing a wide range of ideas in just a few, spare words.

Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.

It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.

Do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in few!

The average billboard has no more than eight words. It takes a lot of effort to make a beer, rice, or shampoo seem special in eight words.

What the beautiful-writing writers are most attached to is almost always superfluous.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

Jerry: If you always want less, in words as well as things, you'll do well as a writer.