Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Vigorous writing is concise.

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.

Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal.

Omit needless words.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

In a newspaper, you only have so much room. It teaches you the value of getting to the point, of not pampering yourself with your glorious writing. I've always been much more interested in one powerful sentence that stays with you. That's my style.

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

I write very tightly, and my big fear is boring people. I want them to read quickly, stopped in their tracks. I resist indulging myself.

I think precision in writing goes hand in hand with not trying to say everything. You try and say two-thirds, so the reader will involve himself or herself.

Writing for children is murder. A chapter has to be boiled down to a paragraph. Every word has to count.

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.

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.)

Journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one. You are trained to get rid of anything nonessential. You go in, you start writing your article, assuming a person's going to stop reading the minute you give them a reason. So the trick is: don't give them one.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

Good writing does not come from verbiage but from words.

Less really is more. It's a tendency of beginning writers to want to prove what they're talking about by going too far with description. I think you've got to keep it short, crisp and clean.

Anyone can make an article longer; the skill is keeping it tight and lean.

I've been accused of being a minimalist writer. I don't like a lot of verbiage in there.

But the shortest works are always the best.

My writing tends to become very dense, so I have to keep some cushion. Sometimes, words that seem superfluous are actually essential for the overall effect.

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.

Directing my own writing, I see that I talk way too much, and everything can happen much sooner, with much less said about it.

In general, shorter is better. If you can encapsulate your idea into a single captivating sentence, you're halfway home.

We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.

Adverbs lead to overwriting. Try taking them out and reading your prose again to see how it sounds. Simple and less words are more powerful.