Sometimes I will make CliffsNotes of my CliffsNotes.
People tend to simplify things.
If you can’t fit your argument on a bumper sticker, you’ve lost the debate.
Do you know why I don't like doing press? I have trouble condensing things. I'd rather have a conversation.
Screenwriting is about condensing.
At certain periods of history it is only poetry that is capable of dealing with reality by condensing it into something graspable, something that otherwise wouldn't be retained by the mind.
You know, there's an economy in lyric-writing that doesn't afford you, or at least me - I usually start off with nine or 10 verses and then boil it down to two or three that are half the length of the original verses.
There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them.
Every song is a long process. First I have to write a story for it, and then to make it into a song, I have to make it short and then shorter - so it's not easy!
Whenever you're adapting something that's a 12- or 14-hour read down to something that has to be around two hours, there's going to be some cuts.
I like cutting through complexity and trying to get to the kernel of an idea.
When books and plays are made into movies, they frequently want to cut out the valleys and just show the peaks.
I'm one of the best condensers in the business.
You can certainly shorten things and tighten things, we tightened up Jon's walk to Mance Rayder's tent. That was something that got tightened up a little bit because I had shot the hell out of that.
