Concision Quotes & Sayings

You won't find average Americans on the left or on the right. You'll find them at Kmart. — Zell Miller

I'm not ashamed of who I am. — Terry Bradshaw

The novella is at once the most elegant and demanding form: a writer must balance the looseness of a novel with the concision of a short story, a feat that only the bravest and most talented of us can manage. In Brazil, Jesse Lee Kercheval proves, yet again, that she is exactly the right writer for the job. A wild American picaresque, Brazil snaps along briskly, yet feels full-fleshed, and brims with a sly wit and grace. — Lauren Groff

I'm not a dieter. I have the palate of a 7-year-old boy, although I'm working on it. I order off the kids' menu! I'm working hard to eat more fruit and veggies and round it all out, but I'm a big pretzels and Diet Coke kind of girl. — Allison Williams

Good environmentalism is good economics — Barber Conable

appetites of such a girl. I was nearly certain, she would attempt something, and soon. February 5, 1541 — E. Knight

I spend about a year between novels. — Anne Tyler

Partially satisfied by grazing on the first few pages of several books, and as a consequence, there are half-chewed novels lying all over the place. At least, I'm presuming they're lying all over the place; I seem to have temporarily lost most of them. When the World Cup is over, and we clear away the piles of betting slips and wall charts, some of them will, presumably, reappear. I wrote in this column recently about Muriel Spark's novels, their genius and their attractive brevity, but there is an obvious disadvantage to her concision: her books tend to get buried under things. I can put my hands on Dennis Lehane's historical novel The Given Day whenever I want, simply because it is seven hundred pages long. — Nick Hornby

I think the best thing I learned from drawing comics is that it's a great exercise in concision. — Patrice Leconte

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life. — Caroline Goyder

If you like the precision and concision of poetry, a page of prose is unsatisfying in a certain way. And poetry is so direct. — Helen Vendler

You cheated!"
He looked at her, wide-eyed with feigned outrage. "I beg your pardon. If you were a man, I would call you out for that accusation."
"And I assure you, my lord, that I would ride forth victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness."
"Are you quoting the Bible to me?"
"Indeed," she said primly, the portrait of piousness.
"While gambling."
"What better location to attempt to reform one such as you? — Sarah MacLean

Launching more drone strikes than Bush ever did and compiling a secret "kill list," President Obama's administration took the view that al-Qaeda was like an organized crime gang - disrupt the hierarchy, destroy the gang. Theirs was a concerted and dogmatic attempt at pretending that al-Qaeda was nothing but a fringe criminal group, and not a concrete realization of an ideological phenomenon with grassroots sympathy. They took this view in part because of how successful Islamist "fellow-traveler" lobbies had been in influencing Obama's campaign after the mistakes of the Bush years. For Islamists and their allies, the problem was "al-Qaeda inspired extremism," and not the extremism that had inspired al-Qaeda. — Sam Harris

Ever feel so happy that you want to crawl out of your own skin so you can see it for yourself? — Patricia Bachkoff Weber

Concision in art is a necessity and an elegance. The verbose painter bores: who will get rid of all these trimmings? — Edouard Manet

I finally learned to live in the present and focus only on what I want rather than what I don't want. — Darren Johnson

Short fiction is the medium I love the most, because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision, the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that, though lacking a novel's length, satisfies the reader. — Ron Rash

Your father had other plans for you. Alas, his breakdown and untimely demise derailed everything he'd worked to accomplish. He would not approve of your quixotic pursuit of Imogene. She became embroiled in his vendetta with the forces of darkness, as it were. No sense following her into oblivion."
Conrad said, "You talk a lot for a guy on oxygen. — Laird Barron

Time waits for no one. — Christine Brae

Concision is the sister of talent. — Ken Follett

When you're writing in big block paragraphs, you can afford to have a redundant sentence now and then, but the Twitter format requires concision. — Anthony Marra

Lovers of concision, laconicism and economy of language will doubtless be asking, if the idea is such a simple one, why did we need all this waffle to arrive, at last, at the critical point. — Jose Saramago

I like to go for a certain over-the-top opulence when naming the drone pieces whereas the song titles are all about concision, I guess. I mean, if I were truly a purist, I'd call things, "Long Piece #27" or "Newest Fast Song", but I enjoy titling and it is helpful at rehearsals or when making set-lists. — David First

I knew that good people who wanted to be a part of the American dream have become trapped in dependency because the federal government and the state government had made it in their economic interest not to take a job because the benefits that they didn't work were better. I changed that. — George Pataki

We have deemed all these words necessary in order to explain that we have been traveling more slowly than was predicted, concision is not a definitive virtue, on occasion one loses out by talking too much, it is true, but how much has also been gained by saying more than was strictly necessary. — Jose Saramago

Every time there's a really good story, there's women in it. We may not get as many roles, but the roles we get are really good, I think, for the most part. — Sigourney Weaver

History never repeats itself; at best it sometimes rhymes. — Mark Twain