“Write a great beginning, write a great ending and keep them close together.”
— Anonymous
“I always remember this great response of an English professor. The freshman asked, ‘How long should the term paper be?’ And he said, ‘Like a lady’s skirt, long enough to cover the subject, short enough to be interesting.’”
— John Baldessari, artist
“If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea.”
— David Belasco, American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright
“Just because a story is short, even really, really short, doesn’t mean it can’t contain multitudes. (Or span them.)”
— Scott Bradfield, short story author, in his review of 420 Characters for The New York Times
“In the end, though, … the short story itself … emerges triumphant from these pages. Because, let’s face it, there’s simply nothing you can’t do to the little rascal — chop it, compress it, digitize it, Oulipo-ize it, even Martinize it or social network-ize it — it’s alive!”
— Scott Bradfield, short story author, in his review of 420 Characters for The New York Times
“I think most of the long stories I see could be shorter. And a lot of the short stories could be shorter. And the medium length stories — they, in particular, could benefit from a little trim above the ears.”
— Roy Peter Clark, The Poynter Institute’s senior scholar and author of Writing Tools
“Beware: The infinite space on the Internet creates aerated prose.”
— Roy Peter Clark, The Poynter Institute’s senior scholar and author of Writing Tools
“Know from the beginning whether you’re writing a sonnet or an epic.”
— Roy Peter Clark, vice president and senior scholar, The Poynter Institute
“Over the years, I’ve refined ways of stretching papers. I can write a four-word sentence in forty words. Just give me one phrase of quotable text, and I’ll produce two pages of ponderous explanation. I can say in ten pages what most normal people could say in a paragraph.”
— Ed Dante, the pseudonym of Dave Tomar, a freelance writer living in Philadelphia
“I’ve read 80-inch stories that I could have read another 20 inches on. And I’ve read 10-inch stories that were too long. So, it all depends on … how was it done? What’s the reporting? How’s the writing? Is it a topic that really engages and captivates?”
— Michael Days, editor of the Philadelphia Daily News
“He basically said, ‘You’ve got to get me in the first 20 seconds. I watch movies on YouTube, and if they’re 25 seconds long, they’re five seconds too long.’”
— John Edwards, presidential candidate, on campaign advice he received from guitarist John Mayer
“There is more, much more than I could ever absorb, even if it were spread out over a semester long course. On the reasonable assumption that none of us is planning to go home and curl up with the ‘Wal-Mart Associate Handbook,’ our trainers start reading it out loud to us, pausing every few paragraphs to ask, ‘Any questions?’ There never are. Barry, the seventeen year old to my left, mutters that his ‘butt hurts.’”
— Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, on Wal-Mart training
“Writing short is harder than writing long. Everything matters. An entire narrative — a life, a death, a drink, a fling — must be bent into the space of a poem.”
— Esquire editors about their 79-word story contest
“I will be brief. Not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the world’s shortest speech. He said. ‘I will be so brief I have already finished,’ and he sat down.”
— Gene Fowler, author and journalist
“While many of you — and many around the world — were ripping through the latest Harry Potter, I was reading Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari. It’s an unusual choice for me because it is 497 pages long. Usually, I figure any book that is over 300 pages happens because the author doesn’t have a good editor. But I made an exception in this case.”
— Julie Freeman, president, International Association of Business Communicators
“Ratio of the number of words in the last State of the Union Address to those in George Washington’s first: 5:1.”
— Harper’s Index
“Good things, when short, are twice as good.”
— Baltasar Gracian, baroque prose writer and philosopher
“No more Jack London novels. We need to be USA Today.”
— Mark Hume, PR pro at Verizon Wireless
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
— Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States
“Star Vision is printed on paper, not spandex. We must adhere to word counts and deadlines.”
— Patricia Jones, TDS Employee Communications
“What you don’t play can be more important than what you do play.”
— Thelonius Monk, American jazz pianist and composer
“If any man will draw up his case, and put his name at the foot of the first page, I will give him an immediate reply. Where he compels me to turn over the sheet, he must wait my leisure.”
— John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
“The point of good writing is knowing when to stop.”
— L.M. Montgomery, Canadian author, best known for her novel Anne of Green Gables
“Life would be better with a half-hour less of everything — shorter flights, shorter speeches, shorter voice mails, and shorter dinners.”
— Carlos Mota, special projects editor for Elle Decor magazine
“My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.”
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Classical composer
“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books — what other men do not say in whole books.”
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German philosopher, cultural critic and poet
“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”
— Dorothy Parker, American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist
“Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
“Have the gall to tell it all — in three sentences or less (a good but old habit from radio news writing days).”
— Katrina Seymour, Communication Services Specialist II, Arapahoe County, Colorado
“Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.”
— William Shakespeare, in Hamlet
“In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.”
— Sydney Smith, English wit, writer and Anglican cleric
“It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”
— Robert Southey, an English poet of the Romantic school
“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”
— William Strunk Jr., author, The Elements of Style
“Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five and other novels
“Whenever I was spoken to about bad writing, it was because of a lack of clarity or for saying something that obviously pretended to know something I had no right to know. That sort of thing. Ever since, I’ve found straightforwardness congenial, and it’s made my books very short.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five and other novels
“The story of the creation was told in 200 words. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”
— Edgar Wallace, English writer
“Silence is the 13th note and sounds good on any key, any chord at any time; it is forever the new black.”
— Randy Weinstein, professional harmonica player
“It should be as long as necessary. It should be as short as possible.”
— Philip Yaffe, reporter-turned-marketing consultant
