Hunter S. Thompson Quotes

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.

I've always written very tightly, and there's a good reason for that. There's no point in using words that you're not going to apply.

I don't want to indulge myself in the luxury of writing beautiful paragraphs just for the sake of making beautiful writing. That doesn't interest me. I want everything to be essential.

I usually write very few stage directions. I think a lot of that is a waste of time. The art of screenwriting is in its terseness, saying a lot with a little. I have no patience when I read a script where the writer describes this guy and what he's wearing and his glasses and his hair.

Much modern prose is praised for its terseness, its scrupulous avoidance of curlicue, etcetera. But I don't feel the deeper rhythm there. I don't think these writers are being terse out of choice. I think they are being terse because it's the only way they can write.

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

It's important to look ahead, I think, to shape your stuff for - again - effect. Because it's just so easy to write long, flowy sentences, get lost in them. The hard part's making them matter, making yourself make them matter.

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 favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene.

Hard writing makes easy reading.

Good writing does not come from verbiage but from words.

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.

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

I don't use a lot of words unnecessarily.

Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.

I think the best answer is as little as possible.

Most writers write too much. I have the exact opposite problem. I feel I could write almost anything in a paragraph. I have a natural ability to condense, and so I often think, "Are you kidding me? Five thousand words? How am I gonna make 5,000 words out of that?"

All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

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

Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense. If you write in a way that is clear, transparent, and elegant, it will reach everyone.

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them.

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.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

Good writing , like gold , combines lustrous lucidity with high density. What this means is good writing is packed with hints.

Cross out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can. ... It is comprehensible when I write: "The man sat on the grass," because it is clear and does not detain one's attention. On the other hand, it is difficult to figure out and hard on the brain if I write: "The tall, narrow-chested man of medium height and with a red beard sat down on the green grass that had already been trampled down by the pedestrians, sat down silently, looking around timidly and fearfully." The brain can't grasp all that at once, and art must be grasped at once, instantaneously.