William Faulkner Quotes

To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.

You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

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.

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

True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.

Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.

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

I don't use a lot of words unnecessarily.

I'm very direct, I don't believe in wasting time, in wasting words.

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

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.

The point of good writing is knowing when to stop.

If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

Aiming at brevity, I become obscure.

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.

More matter with less art.

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.

[S]ince brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

My mom would always say this thing about writing - and I've taken it into account in a lot of things in my life - which is just, "Make it shorter." Figure out what you are truly saying, whittle it down to the essence, then say that.