David McCullough Quotes

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.

For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.

There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.

It's amazing, if you know what you want to say, how fast it is to write.

To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.

Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.

To make yourself understood you have to think plain and write plain.

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.

If you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself

Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action.

Writing is thought crystalized on a piece of paper, which can then be reviewed.

You've got to guard against speaking more clearly than you think.

The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.

When you combine something to say with the skill to say it properly, then you've got a good writer.

... writing had become an essential element of the process of thinking. Not until I had put my thoughts down on paper could I examine them with objectivity.

Writing is the best way to get your mind clear. It's also a great way to explain your past or what you hope for the future.

Tweeting has taught me the discipline to say more with fewer words.

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

I am never as clear about any matter as when I have finished writing about it.

You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

Sometimes I think my whole professional life has been based on this hunch I had, early on, that many people feel just as muddled as I do, and might be happy to tag along with me on this search for clarity, for precision. I love that aspect of writing. Nothing makes me happier than to hear a reader say: that’s just what I’ve always felt, but you said it clearly.

Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

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

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

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.