Diana Gabaldon Quotes

Some people write a thank you note for a gift, and it's three pages long, and some people write a thank you note, and it's five sentences - that's me. I like to pare away words because I don't want to waste anyone's time.

I'm short and to the point.

I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.

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.

Be brief. Above all things be brief.

Less is almost always better than more. Short words, short sentences, short speeches.

I'm definitely not one to prolong things and drag it out, that's not really my personality.

I do try and keep my scripts quite economical.

I'm a quick wit, straight to the point, no nonsense.

All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also.

If you want to show a picture, just show it - don't spend too much time arranging it.

It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

I usually write very few stage directions. I think a lot of that is a waste of time. The art of screenwriting is in its terseness, saying a lot with a little. I have no patience when I read a script where the writer describes this guy and what he's wearing and his glasses and his hair.

The great art of writing is knowing when to stop.

If you are one of the hewers of wood and drawers of small weekly paychecks, your letters will have to contain some few items of news or they will be accounted dry stuff.... But if you happen to be of a literary turn of mind, or are, in any way, likely to become famous, you may settle down to an afternoon of letter-writing on nothing more sprightly in the way of news than the shifting of the wind from south to south-east.

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.

What a labour writing is ... making one sentence do the work of a page; that's what I call hard work.

It has long been a theory of mine and I am known, if I do say so, for my long theories that authors, generally speaking, are rotten letter writers.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.

More matter with less art.

As a songwriter, I try not to be sloppy; same with the music. You can be very lean, very efficient, so you're not wasting a lot of time getting' to the point. You're saying it with as pure a word or phrase as you can. That's the part that was craft. You refine and refine and refine. Maybe that's why the songs still hang on, because they're very pure. For one thing, they're very short. "Bad Moon Rising" is like 2 minutes and 12 seconds. I would try to do everything as quickly and with as little extra as possible. It was a challenge.