Nicolas Chamfort Quotes

The scope of what I have to say determines the length of what I write.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.

I love to write. English is my favorite subject in school.

Some people read. I like to put words together.

Oftentimes, I need to write about something in order to understand it.

I'm a big reader. And I take a lot of pictures, do a lot of writing.

one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.

Most rats read. Our frustration is, we cannot hold a pen to write.

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.

You have to have some kind of clarity or understanding of what's happening to write.

Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all.

We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.

I don't know what I think until I write it down.

There should be two main objectives in ordinary prose writing: to convey a message and to include in it nothing that will distract the reader's attention or check his habitual pace of reading - he should feel that he is seated at ease in a taxi, not riding a temperamental horse through traffic.

Good writers are in the business of leaving signposts saying, Tour my world, see and feel it through my eyes; I am your guide.

Writing has been an important exercise to clarify what I believe, what I see, what I care about, what my deepest values are. The process of converting a jumble of thoughts into coherent sentences makes you ask tougher questions.

People who think well, write well

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.

Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader.

Easy writing's curst hard reading.

In general, what is written must be easy to read and easy to speak; which is the same.

Suppose we think while we talk or write--I mean, as we normally do--we shall not in general say that we think quicker than we talk, but the thought seems not to be separate from the expression.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

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