Fran Lebowitz Quotes

Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say. Of course those who write short books have even less to say.

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

You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.

How often one reads a contemporary full-length novel and thinks quietly, mutinously, that it would have worked out better at half or a third the length.

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

I always write too long in the beginning, then it is a matter of going through it over and over again on subsequent drafts, looking for anything that slows down the narrative. It can be hard, cutting out parts I love, but I try to make the book as tight as possible so that the reader doesn't get bored.

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.

The great art of writing is knowing when to stop.

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

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

I have the exact opposite problem of every writer I've ever met: Every writer I've ever met writes things that are too long, and they have to edit them down.

Often you must turn your stylus to erase, if you hope to write anything worth a second reading.

Purely the idea of writing a lot of books doesn't make you a great writer, but it might be that the process of doing a lot of writing will make you a much better writer.

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 would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

I think writing a book with film in mind is a way to write a really bad books. You can usually tell those books that are packaged to become films.

The point of good writing is knowing when to stop.

The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.

I write a book at least three times-once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say.

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.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

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

I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.