Be Terse Quotes & Sayings

Lily Brown writes with and against things in poems that are coiled up tight as springs (or snakes). A believer in the power of the line, she writes, 'I think the plastics/and sink them' then 'Where is the sand/man hiding the dirt.' These terse, biting poems will make you look around and wonder. — Rae Armantrout

I think about the people I know with the absolutely largest hearts, people with a stunning capacity for endurance and grace and kindness against the most screaming terrors and pains. My Mom and Dad, for example, enduring the death of their first child at six months old, the boy the brother I never met, dying quietly in his stroller on the porch in the moment that my mother stepped back inside to get a pair of gloves because the crisp brilliant April wind was filled with a whistling cutting wind....

Fifty years later after five more children and two miscarriages she is standing in the kitchen with her usual eternal endless cup of tea and I ask her: How do you get over the death of your child?

And she says, in her blunt honest direct terse kind way,
You don't.
Her face harrowed like a hawk for a moment in the swirling steam of the tea.
p112-13 — Brian Doyle

Imagine if one of them were turned. Imagine if one could be bought.'
'But they're chosen just so's they can't be bought ... '
'History ... ' Jacobs spoke with terse authority. Brought Ori to a hush. 'Is all full. And dripping. With the corpses. Of them who trusted the incorruptible. — China Mieville

Clifford paints true-to-life characters with the same gritty touch as the best of Dennis Lehane. Straightforward and edgy, Lamentation gnaws with nail-biting tension on every page. A must-read for contemporary hardboiled mystery fans who appreciate the type of terse dialogue and real life conflicts and settings Elmore Leonard so richly brought to life. — Robert Dugoni

Alexander once made himself supremely ridiculous. Coming across Epicurus's Principal Doctrines, the most admirable of his books, as you know, with its terse presentment of his wise conclusions, he brought it into the middle of the marketplace, there burned it on a figwood fire for the sins of its author, and cast its ashes into the sea. He issued an oracle on the occasion:
"The dotard's doctrines to the flames be given."
The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon its readers, of the peace, tranquility, and independence of mind it produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and marvels, vain hopes and insubordinate desires, of the judgment and candor that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and frankness. — Lucian Of Samosata

Wise Bear said something in his own language, mouth twisting in disgust as if the words stained his tongue. He caught Vaelin's enquiring gaze and provided a terse translation, "Cat People. — Anthony Ryan

His kisses to her neck were growing hungry and her insides were heating up,but she managed to mutter a terse,I would rather eat my own eyeballs than sit at the table with those bastards. — Laura Wright

They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People's Business. — Herman Melville

What began with exuberance and passion always ended with terse accusations and hateful words, with rage and weeping fits. — Khaled Hosseini

When I struggle to be terse, I end by being obscure. — Horace

Much modern prose is praised for its terseness, its scrupulous avoidance of curlicue, etcetera. But I don't feel the deeper rhythm there. I don't think these writers are being terse out of choice. I think they are being terse because it's the only way they can write. — Martin Amis

This ain't over yet." Fourteen Captain Tripp was at his desk when the sun came up. He firmly believed that if you got up before the criminals, it was that much easier to stay one step ahead of them. He picked up the phone and left a terse message for Lt. Hayward. Twenty minutes later, Phil Hayward was at his office door. "You want to see me?" "Come in," Tripp said. "Close the door." Lt. Hayward closed the door and sat in Tripp's only guest chair. He waited for Tripp to put down his pen and address him. Eventually, Tripp looked up and regarded Hayward over his reading — T.A. Clark

Ian did, with a blackened eye, skinned knuckles, and the terse report that Manfred had declared a set intention of going off and hanging himself, and good riddance to the fornicating son of a bitch, and might his rotten bowels gush forth like Judas Iscariot's, the traitorous, stinking wee turd. — Diana Gabaldon

I wonder whether I should gain anything by the attempt to assume a character which is not mine. My wavering manner, born of doubt and scruple, has at least the advantage of rendering all the different shades of my thought, and of being sincere. If it were to become terse, affirmative, resolute, would it not be a mere imitation? — Henri Frederic Amiel

As much as he hated the travel, he loved the writing - the virtuous delights of organizing a disorganized country, stripping away the inessential and the second-rate, classifying all that remained in neat, terse paragraphs. He cribbed from other guidebooks, seizing small kernels of value and discarding the rest. — Anne Tyler

But let the wise be warned against too great readiness at explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong. — George Eliot

Philologically, the word Kodak is as meaningless as a child's first goo. Terse, abrupt to the point of rudeness, literally bitten off by firm and unyielding consonants at both ends, it snaps like a camera shutter in your face. What more would one ask. (Explaining why he named his company Kodak.) — George Eastman

With the funeral to be arranged, and the club's business in disarray, and the building itself in dire need of restoration, Sebastian should have been far too busy to take notice of Evie and her condition. However, she soon realized that he was demanding frequent reports from the housemaids about how much she had slept, and whether she had eaten, and her activities in general. Upon learning that Evie had gone without breakfast or lunch, Sebastian had a supper tray sent upstairs, accompanied by a terse note.
My lady,
This tray will be returned for my inspection within the hour. If everything on it is not eaten, I will personally force-feed it to you.
Bon appetit,
S.
To Sebastian's satisfaction, Evie obeyed the edict. She wondered with annoyance if his orders were motivated by concern or by a desire to browbeat her. — Lisa Kleypas

The grown-ups snapped the chillies (each made a sound terse as a satirical retort), and scattered the tiny, deadly seeds in their food. — Amit Chaudhuri

Examined in color through the adjustable window of a computer screen, the Mandelbrot set seems more fractal than fractals, so rich is its complication across scales. A cataloguing of the different images within it or a numerical description of the set's outline would require an infinity of information. But here is a paradox: to send a full description of the set over a transmission line requires just a few dozen characters of code. A terse computer program contains enough information to reproduce the entire set. Those who were first to understand the way the set commingles complexity and simplicity were caught unprepared-even Mandelbrot. — James Gleick

Niall's nostrils flared with a patience-inducing breath before he whispered, "Seriously? Are you packing today?"

Duff's overbuilt shoulders shifted as he turned to whisper a response. "Hey. You wear your glasses every day, Poindexter. I wear my gun."

"I wasn't aware that you knew what the term Poindexter meant."

"I'm smarter than I look" was Duff's terse response.

Keir chuckled. "He'd have to be."

Duff's muscular shoulders shifted. "So help me, baby brother, if you give me any grief today, I will lay you out flat."

"Zip it. Both of you."

Niall, Duff and Keir Watson — Julie Miller

The worst thing about being concise with people is the game of puzzle you've made them play. — Michael Bassey Johnson

I thought it had a very compelling opening, and after a couple of pages, I had that feeling of 'I'm in good hands,' and eager to see where this is going. I felt lots of intrigue, stakes, and conflict right from the outset, with a clear, terse writing style that drew me in right away.
--Erik Bork, Emmy Award winning screenwriter, Band of Brothers. — Robert Child

She's not the one I want." His words came out terse. "It's you. It's been you since ... since the minute I first saw you. — C.C. Hunter

Bismillah." Then he picked up his fork. "That's it?" Hollis wondered. "That's it. We are a terse people. Terse, and also hungry. — John Green

Oh, innocent victims of Cupid, remember this terse little verse: To let a fool kiss you is stupid. To let a kiss fool you is worse. — Yip Harburg

With the Russian Empire teetering on the brink of collapse, the tsarist regime responded to the crises with its usual incompetence and obstinacy. The basic problem was that Nicholas himself remained totally oblivious to the extremity of the situation. While the country sank deeper into chaos he continued to fill his diary with terse and trivial notes on the weather, the company at tea and the number of birds he had shot that day. When Bulygin suggested that political concessions might be needed to calm the country, Nicholas was taken aback and told the Minister: 'One would think you are afraid a revolution will break out.' 'Your majesty,' came the reply, 'the revolution has already begun. — Orlando Figes

The text message she'd received last night from the unknown number left her sick inside. It had been curt and to the point: Stay away from my husband. The terse message came with a photo of Gabe with a pretty brunette. — Lena Hart

As we divest ourselves of once familiar physical objects - digitize and dematerialize - we approach a 'Star Trek' future in which everything can be accessed from the fourth dimension with a few clicks or terse audibles. — James Wolcott

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up. — Alan Bennett

Smiley himself was one of those solitaires who seem to have come into the world fully educated at the age of eighteen. Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonimity and his safety. His fear makes him servile - he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes. (ch. 9) — John Le Carre

This is a marvel of the universe:
To fling a thought across a stretch of sky
Some weighty message, or a yearning cry,
It matters not; the elements rehearse
Man's urgent utterance, and his words traverse
The spacious heav'ns like homing birds that fly
Unswervingly, until, upreached on high,
A quickened hand plucks off the message terse. — Josephine Preston Peabody

The French, than whom - it's a very than-whom people all round - none can be more vacuously orotund, are (the same ones) obligingly terse. On occasion. — Nicolas Freeling

And then it happens, the most dreaded response in the world, more terse than any word, more withholding than a "no," and strictly verboten for someone as in love with language and me as you claim to be.

You: "K — Caroline Kepnes

Mama only snorted. A terse, ironic half laugh, the kind of angry chortle that powered Mama through her daily drudgery, as if it were the exhaust from an internal engine that runs on pure sass. — Stefan Merrill Block

During abusive conversations each remark after the first is only about the previous remark.
Verbal abuse is less complex than other forms of conversation! "Aware of their stateless, knee-jerk character, I recognize that the terse remark I want to blurt has far more to do with some kind of "reflex" to the very last sentence of the conversation than it does with either the actual issue at hand or the person I'm talking to ... I steer myself toward a more "stateful" response. — Brian Christian

In the advanced practice, the relationship between the Zen master and the student becomes very terse. The Zen master will expect things of the student because the student is in graduate school. — Frederick Lenz

She's terse. I can be terse. Once, in flight school, I was laconic. — Joss Whedon

This progressive effacement of human relationships is not without certain problems for the novel. How, in point of fact, would one handle the narration of those unbridled passions, stretching over many years, and at times making their effect felt on several generations? We're a long way from Wuthering Heights, to say the least. The novel form is not conceived for depicting indifference or nothingness; a flatter, more terse, and dreary discourse would need to be invented. — Michel Houellebecq

Let us be, then, warriors of the heart, and enlist in our inner cause the virtues we have acquired through blood and sweat in the sphere of conflict - courage, patience, selflessness, loyalty, fidelity, self-command, respect for elders, love of our comrades (and of the enemy), perseverance, cheerfulness in adversity and a sense of humor, however terse or dark. — Steven Pressfield

Imagine the wars we would've avoided if prior generations had a website where they could debate tragedy and politics in terse sentences? — Eugene Mirman

This saying is both true and terse:
There's nothing bad but might be worse. — Thornton Burgess

The Tao Te Ching is partly in prose, partly in verse; but as we define poetry now, not by rhyme and meter but as a patterned intensity of language, the whole thing is poetry. I wanted to catch that poetry, its terse, strange beauty. Most translations have caught meanings in their net, but prosily, letting the beauty slip through. And in poetry, beauty is no ornament; it is the meaning. It is the truth. We have that on good authority. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Men always failed Maman in the end. They forever fell disastrously short of whatever ideal she held them up to. What began with exuberance and passion always ended with terse accusations and hateful words, with rage and weeping fits and the flinging of cooking utensils and collapse. High drama. Maman was incapable of either starting or ending a relationship without excess. — Khaled Hosseini

Booker T. Jones sounds more pithy and forceful than ever on "Potato Hole" ... Mr. Jones still jabs terse, unhurried melodies that sound as if he knows the lyrics but would never tell. Where the M.G.'s suavely underplayed their aggression, the rockers' multiple-guitar attack, with distortion and feedback, gives the music teeth. — Jon Pareles