Language Simplicity Quotes

I try to keep my sentences quite pared back. What I really want to do is observe people's relationships and interactions. I don't want language to get in the way of that. It's quite a difficult process to achieve that, for the language to feel clear.

Why say 'utilize' when you can say 'use'?

If we do away with semi-colons, parentheses and much else, we will lose all music, nuance and subtlety in communication - and end up shouting at one another in block capitals.

We don't communicate in full sentences anyway. We don't need all those words.

In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.

I want to make a film that can reach as many as possible so I want to talk in a language which I can easily communicate with.

My accent was horrible. In Mexico, nobody says, 'You speak English with a good accent.' You either speak English, or you don't: As long as you can communicate, no one cares.

Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century.

There is a loving way with words and an unloving way. And it is only with the loving way that the simplicity of language becomes beautiful.

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.

Avoid an unusual and unfamiliar word just as you would a reef.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

I've really tried to strip my writing of as many adjectives and adverbs as I possibly can.

Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

I write in quite a simple way because that's just the way I write. The vocab I use is quite wee. That's just the way I talk.

that your power of command with simple language was one of the magnificent things of our century. (from the poem: result)

If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective.

What is the real function, the essential function, the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words of fonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome forms?

What I like about Hollywood is that one can get along by knowing two words of English -- SWELL and LOUSY.

This evolution may compromise Java's claim of being simpler than C++, but my guess is that the effort will make Java a better language than it is today.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

You could imagine a language exactly like English except it doesn't have connectives like 'and' that allow you to make longer expressions. An infant learning truncated English would have no idea about this: They would just pick it up as they would standard English.

So mathematical truth prefers simple words since the language of truth is itself simple.

I let Brel into my world. What I like about him is the simplicity of his language. It's not so simple to be simple.

Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose... anything goes.