Mohsin Hamid Quotes

I cannot write long books; I leave that for those who have nothing to say.

Use half as many words and they'll hit twice as hard.

I'm going to make a long speech because I've not had the time to prepare a short one.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

One can only continue to expect to be read if one omits everything that is unimportant.

It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. You publish with shorth! (Shorth is better than length.)

I don't want my readers slowed down by long passages of narrative.

No one ever complains about a speech being too short!

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

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.

One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store. Brevity is very important. If you're going to be longwinded, it should be for a purpose. Not just because you like your words.

My purpose in public address and in speech is really encapsulated in three C's: clear, concise, correct. No overblowing rhetoric or anything like that. As simple as possible: clear, concise, correct.

Less is almost always better than more. Short words, short sentences, short speeches.

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

I do try and keep my scripts quite economical.

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

If I had more time, I would have written less.

It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

I like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like sentences that don't budge though armies cross them.

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

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.

As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.

Whatever you want to teach, be brief.

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.

I write very tightly, and my big fear is boring people. I want them to read quickly, stopped in their tracks. I resist indulging myself.