Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

If somebody writes clearly, you can pretty much tell immediately if something is shallow or deep, whereas if they write with all this duckweed on the surface, you can't tell if the stream is one inch deep or a hundred fathoms.

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.

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.

Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.

The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again - without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.

A cardinal rule of writing is never interrupt yourself to explain something. If you must bring up an obscure topic, drop informative hints about it as you go along so that you don't end up with the entire explanation all in one place. This keeps you from skidding to a stop and sounding teacherish. Otherwise it's better to omit the obscure topic altogether, or as mothers might put it: if you can't say it interestingly, don't say it at all.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.

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

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.

I wish I could be a better writer, but writing is so difficult. I get seduced by visual aesthetics. Because I just like making beautiful pictures, sometimes I wander away from making a clear statement.

Successful writers learn at last what they should learn at first,--to be intelligently simple.

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

Humans generally get out the gist of what they need to say right at the beginning, then spend forever qualifying, contradicting, burnishing or taking important things back. Yor rareley miss anything by cutting most people off after two sentences.

If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts.

You come by your style by learning what to leave out. At first you tend to overwrite—embellishment instead of insight. You either continue to write puerile bilge, or you change. In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice.

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

A lot of critics think I'm stupid because my sentences are so simple and my method is so direct: they think these are defects. No. The point is to write as much as you know as quickly as possible.

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.

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.

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.

A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch.

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