Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes

word thrower … phrase maker

I have tons of stuff that, you know, seems like it's a well-constructed sentence but it is not how people talk, it's how people write. So that's why I think it's sometimes easier for me to write for actors 'cause I know what's frustrating about, you know, sentences that come out just perfect. Well, who talks like that? And who of us don't overlap each other? Except on the radio, hopefully.

I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.

The perfection of style consists in the use of the exact speech necessary to convey the sense in the fewest words consistent with perspicuity, at the same time having regard to appropriateness and harmony of expression. Its greater excellencies are directness, accuracy, appropriateness and perspicuity.

I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

Writing is better if it's kept simple. Every sentence doesn't need to have perfect noun/verb agreement. I've said 'ain't' on the air. Because I sometimes use 'ain't' when I'm talking.

If you are writing something, you automatically create a certain distance. It can be very little. Even within the same city you imaginatively have a certain distance from your subject, and at the same time, you have to have a connection.

Over the years, I've trained myself to speak using the same language I would use if I were typing: meaning using full sentences in the way that paragraphs and scenes are arranged.

I allegedly am an outsider writer, so I write from the perspective of somebody who doesn't completely fit in. But at the same time, I can state the fact that I don't know of any good writer who is not an outsider writer.

There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

In prose, I think you sometimes have to write in very plain language, where every line may not seem to be so important, though in all writing every line is important.

You can't be a storyteller and a speechwriter at the same time.

Choose each word as a precision tool. Consider how it sounds, not how it reads.

My basic rule is to speak slowly and simply so that my audience has an opportunity to follow and think about what I am saying.

What is the short meaning of the long speech?

No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

Accent [emphasis] is the soul of speech; it gives it feeling and truth.

I don't talk in sound bites.

People don't read me and say, 'Oh, it's so clean and elegant.'

I enjoy finding the right word and giving each its full measure, its full space in a sentence.

Ideas are only as good as your ability to communicate them.

Fine writing is a distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attention from the subject

I think the effective use of quotation is an important point in the art of writing. Given sparingly, quotations serve admirably as a climax or as a corroboration, but when they are long and frequent, they seriously weaken the effect of a book. We lose sight of the writer - he scatters our sympathy among others than himself - and the ideas which he himself advances are not knit together with our impression of his personality.

I like that kind of stuff. I like doing speeches. I've been lucky because I've had a lot of characters, over the years, who will have three or four page speeches.