Precise Writing Quotes

A journalist uses the most precise words he or she can. An artist does the same sort of thing. You gather material about a particular subject, you refine it as best you can.

Omit needless words.

You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.

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.

Certain writers have it very precise and there's not much room to add something.

The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: Focus on clarity. Concentrate on precisions. Don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.

Anyone can make an article longer; the skill is keeping it tight and lean.

Vigorous writing is concise.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear.

I wrote the text of the resignation. I cannot say with precision when, but at the most two weeks before. I wrote it in Latin because something so important you do in Latin. Furthermore, Latin is a language in which I know well how to write in a more appropriate way.

I'm a big admirer of Daniel Woodrell for his beautiful, precise, sparse prose - I don't do succinct well, so I'm in awe of writers who do.

Whatever I'm doing, I try to write well. I try to give the reader a nice, clean well-written surface, where the writing is transparent. It probably takes me longer to write things, but it's very important to me that the writing itself be good.

Sloppy language leads to sloppy thought, and sloppy thought to sloppy legislation.

And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them.

Steve Martin is such an exquisite and precise writer. Everything is so clear; it's like a bell. He says what he means and says it so beautifully.

Use declarative sentences… Use an elevated tone… Use graceful language

Rowan Joffe is very specific. I mean, he wrote it as well and he has a very orderly writer's mind and the same applies to his directing.

Look for all fancy wordings and get rid of themAvoid all terms and expressions, old or new, that embody affectation.

How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.

Before the scene, before the paragraph, even before the sentence, comes the word. Individual words and phrases are the building blocks of fiction, the genes that generate everything else. Use the right words, and your fiction can blossom. The French have a phrase for it - le mot juste - the exact right word in the exact right position.

Frankly, as much as I love to improvise, it hasn't been difficult to stick to the script on 'Mad Men.' The writing is so precise, and the story so carefully crafted, that I don't think there's room - or need - for ad libbing. I could never come up with dialogue as lovely as these writers do, anyway.

With great writing, there is great clarity.

I'm very analytical, I'm very precise. I mean, I don't write for kids.

Andrew Gurland is so precise and, again, such an amazing writer, but then he's also really honest with himself and what he is seeing.

[George Saunders] is very precise about what he is doing. There isn't a thing left to chance.