Henry Adams Quotes

Be prepared to fall out of love with your words. I'm still too verbose at times.

If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.

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.

The best advice on writing I've ever received was from William Zinsser: 'Be grateful for every word you can cut.'

The great art of writing is knowing when to stop.

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.

I can always make things longer than I intend for them to be, but cutting things down is just brutal. It's like cutting off your fingers every time you lose a word.

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

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

Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing.

You know what writers say about their long books: If I had another year, the book would be half as long.

One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly.

Directing my own writing, I see that I talk way too much, and everything can happen much sooner, with much less said about it.

If you cannot say what you have to say in 20 minutes, you should go away and write a book about it.

If you have to go back and spell-check the text you're about to send, you're saying too much.

The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again - without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.

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

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

The point of good writing is knowing when to stop.

The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.

I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.