Roald Dahl Quotes

Better to say something simply instead of giving people a bunch of vague metaphors to mull over.

Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.

There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.

Communication is about being effective, not always about being proper.

It seems to me that politicians ought to use the same words as other people.

I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.

Simply stated, it is sagacious to eschew obfuscation.

We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused -- in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible.

I hope that my ideas attract a lively dialogue, even if my sentences are simple. Simple sentences have always served me well. And I don't use semicolons. It's hard to read anyway, especially for high school kids. Also, I avoid irony, too. I don't like people saying one thing and meaning the other.

The simpler the message, the broader the meaning, in many respects.

If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.

I get the Reese's candy bar. You look at that, there's an apostrophe-s there. That means the candy bar is his. I didn't know that. Next time you're eating a Reese's candy bar, and a guy named Reese comes by and says, "Gimme that", you better hand it over.

I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.

I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read.

A limited vocabulary, but one with which you can make numerous combinations, is better than thirty thousand words that only hamper the action of the mind.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

It takes courage and skill to be unambiguous and clear.

One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

I never knew what was meant by choice of words. It was one word or none.

The risk of insult is the price of clarity. To be clearly understood one must speak the simple, essential truth as plainly as he is able.

Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words--" "You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means, use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now.

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.