Jean Rostand Quotes

In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.

Writing is learning to say nothing, more cleverly each day.

They place great stress on the clarity of our language for expressing nuances and showing subtleties.

I never want to dumb it down. If there's any simplification, it's just a simplification to make sure that the reader understands the point that the character is trying to make.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

Why do we embroider everything we say with special emphasis when all we really need to do is simply say what needs to he said? Of course the fact is that there is very little that needs to be said.

I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.

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.

Something's that written out is okay, but it's not always a clear indication of what a person means.

A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.

Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable.

I love language, and I love the failure of language.

I think that words are often extraneous to what I do.

One tends to write beyond what's needed.

I labor to be brief, and manage to be obscure.

I'd rather not ever make anything overly simple just because I'm scared people won't get it.

They write them long because they can't write them short.

Reduction! One wants to say more than nature and one makes the impossible mistake of wanting to say it with more means than she, instead of fewer.

Speak on, but be not over-tedious.

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

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

It's really a trade-off: you're always having to decide whether you're going to say the more ambitious thing, and lose a little clarity - or are you going to say something really clearly, and sacrifice a little nuance? Get too obscure, and you sound like a pretentious asshole; go overboard with the clarity, and you sound like you're talking down to your audience, or like you yourself are a reductive simpleton.

I have always had this failing - that I cannot explain myself, as I have said, except at the cost of many words.

Twenty to one offend more in writing too much than too little.