Johannes Brahms Quotes

There is but one art, to omit.

It's not what you play but what you leave out that makes the difference.

My goal is to strip things down so that you need just the right amount of words or shape to convey what you need to convey. I like editing. I like it very tight.

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.

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

So much of artistic creation is just exclusion. It's not creating things; it's just excluding things that really aren't going to be helpful.

Sometimes I think albums are so ambitious, they don't stand as bodies of work because you try to achieve so much, and sometimes we need to do less. Say less.

It is not hard to compose but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table. . . So many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to tread on them.

There is but one art, to omit! Oh, if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knows how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper.

I always listen to what I can leave out.

Simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.

Always listen for what you can leave out.

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

Take the complications, rules, shoulds, musts, have tos, and so on out of your life. By uncomplicating your life and removing the trivial pursuits that occupy so much of it, you open a channel for the genius within you to emerge.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

Omit needless words.

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

The greatest filmmakers are not the ones who put everything in; they're the ones who can figure things to leave out, and in doing so, invite your participation.

I think that we're always drawn - particularly sophisticated people - are always drawn to the idea of simplicity.

To be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper.

What's really important is to simplify. The work of most photographers would be improved immensely if they could do one thing: get rid of the extraneous. If you strive for simplicity, you are more likely to reach the viewer.

For me, music is in the choice of what not to play as much as in what you've chosen to play.

For each detail I include, I throw dozens away. So I guess the first trick is to pick the right details, the most revealing details. Then I think one must simply write quick, clean, bright prose. For me, this means rewriting and rewriting: almost never adding, almost always cutting.

Vigorous writing is concise. 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.

Creativity has more to do with the elimination of the inessential than with inventing something new.