Stephen Fry Quotes

He has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts.

It is a foolish thing to make a long prologue and be short in the story itself.

[S]ince brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

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

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

To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

To say more, is to say less.

Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.

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

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.

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

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.

My father always said that too many words cheapened the value of a man's speech.

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

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

I shall be so brief that I have already finished.

For effective communication, use brevity. Jesus said, 'Follow me.' Now that's brief! He could be brief because of all that he was that he didn't have to say.

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

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

Brevity - the sister of talent.

With few words, one can speak the truth.

Every word you add dilutes the sentence.