Paulo Coelho Quotes

I always feel that I am writing for somebody who is bright but impatient. Someone who doesn't have unlimited time. That is my sense of the reader. So I have got to get to the point.

I try to leave out the parts readers skip.

I've simplified much more in my writing. I say what I've got to say, not in metaphor.

If you consistently write 'The sun set' rather than 'The sun sank slowly in the bright western sky,' your story will move three times as fast. Of course, there are times you want the longer version for atmosphere - but not many. Wordiness not only kills pace; it bores readers.

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.

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

Hard writing makes easy reading.

I want my stories to be understood and enjoyed by anyone, so I need 'beta-readers' who will tell me when the plot is working or not working, and when my writing is concise or vague.

I don't want my readers slowed down by long passages of narrative.

Good writing does not come from verbiage but from words.

You know what writers say about their long books: If I had another year, the book would be half as long.

Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.

It's fun for me to try to write concise, compact things. It's a very good exercise for me. And I think it's important to try to do different things - change what I write about, and also the way I write. Otherwise, I'd just be repeating myself, which wouldn't be good for me or fair to my readers.

I'm a big fan of editing and keeping only the interesting bits in.

As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.

One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly.

Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins.

I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence.

In writing on the page, you can be a bit elliptical, but on TV, you can't dance around stuff. You either show it, or you don't.

I've really tried to strip my writing of as many adjectives and adverbs as I possibly can.

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

It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

Let us not write at a loose rambling rate, in hope the world will wink at all our faults.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.