Alexander Kluge Quotes

My mom would always say this thing about writing - and I've taken it into account in a lot of things in my life - which is just, "Make it shorter." Figure out what you are truly saying, whittle it down to the essence, then say that.

A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.

One can only continue to expect to be read if one omits everything that is unimportant.

Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say. Of course those who write short books have even less to say.

I consider it a good rule for letter-writing to leave unmentioned what the recipient already knows, and instead tell him something new.

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.

You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop-H2O. The reader will get it.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

I think I'm succinct to the point of trying to write the two-word novel. Editing my work almost never means taking anything out but rather adding, because I'm always stripping down. I tend to under-write rather than over-write.

Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.

Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal.

Reverend Fathers, my letters did not usually follow each other at such close intervals, nor were they so long.... This one would not be so long had I but the leisure to make it shorter.

It is always about discovering what, hidden, does not lie on the paper.

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.

It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. You publish with shorth! (Shorth is better than length.)

True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which every one can think out for himself.

Twitter is most suitable for me. In the Chinese language, 140 characters is a novella.

To say more while saying less is the secret of being simple.

In a way, the main fault of all books is that they are too long.

It is sheer laziness not compressing thought into a reasonable space.

You can suffocate a thought by expressing it with too many words.

I think part of being a good screenwriter is being as concise as possible.