William Faulkner Quotes

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

But the shortest works are always the best.

Tweeting has taught me the discipline to say more with fewer words.

They write them long because they can't write them short.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way.

I strive to be brief but I become obscure.

In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.

If you need three adjectives to describe something, then you've probably chosen the wrong something.

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

Simplicity is the glory of expression.

I labor to be brief, and manage to be obscure.

Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.

Brevity - the sister of talent.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.

The best advice on writing I've ever received was from William Zinsser: 'Be grateful for every word you can cut.'

If you can't be smart or funny, be brief.

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

Conciseness is underrated

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

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

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