David Carson Quotes

There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.

For me, until I know that the audience really gets what I'm trying to communicate I'm not done.

He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do: and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him.

My basic rule is to speak slowly and simply so that my audience has an opportunity to follow and think about what I am saying.

Clarity of communication is important.

I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.

I thought clarity of communication was the most important thing in writing, and if you really cared about getting your idea across, you would say it in the most straightforward way possible. Later, in college and grad school, I came to realize that language is a technology like any other, and that it's always evolving - clarity of expression is always evolving.

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

How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things but how well we are understood.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear.

The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

You have to work very hard behind the scenes, to make a message clear enough for a lot of people to understand.

Making noise is easy; making stuff people understand is an easy thing to do.

There are writers who pour out words, concepts that sound really important but that basically say nothing. I always tried to be as concise as possible, all to try and reach everyone, but especially the simple people, those who needed to be reached more than anyone else.

Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.

I am not very good at expressing myself in a simple way so it can create mis-understandings and I hate that.

Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark; when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.

Communication is about being effective, not always about being proper.

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

I've always been very aware of what I'm saying, but I'm also aware of what you're saying. I always want to make sure that my point is clear.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.

I still remember the first acronym I learned, BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. I still try to communicate that way. No reason to dance around getting to the point.

I speak English my way, but people understand it. You can understand everything I say, and that's the most important thing.