Omission Quotes

“Often what people don't say or leave out, tells the real story.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story.

(Interview with Paris Review, 1958)”
― Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference

“The struggle to find a poetry in which your survival rather than your defeat is celebrated, perhaps to find your own voice to insist upon that, or to at least find a way to survive amidst an ethos that relishes your erasures and failures is work that many and perhaps most young women have to do”
― Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir

“The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing.”
― René Descartes, Discourse on Method

“Everything she sang was true. I will leave it to you as to whether the truth can exist with details omitted, or if those lacks make a lie of it.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Quest

“However, we all sin by omission. Therefore, we are all sinners in constant need of a 'Savior'."

~R. Alan Woods [2010]”
― R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is The Destination: A Photo Journal

“Analyze and correct your past mistakes before they paralyze your future! An undiscovered error will always crave for repetition. Kick out errors; enjoy a bright future!‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Daily Drive 365

“I shall not attempt here to describe my marriage. Some impression of it will doubtless emerge. For the present story, its general nature rather than its detail is important. It was not a success. At first I saw her as a life-bringer. Then I saw her as a death-bringer. Some women are like that. There is a sort of energy which seems to reveal the world: then one day you find you are being devoured. Fellow victims will know what I mean. Possibly I am a natural bachelor.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“What happened after that, and will be related later, was something entirely unexpected and so awful that Ludens had never spoken about it afterwards to anyone.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

“To the others, these accounts are about (one more) distant land, like (any other) distant land, without any discernable features in the narrative, (all the same) distant like any other.”
― Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee

“To avoid hurting people needs constant vigilance. As one grows older one is less and less equal to the task. There are so many cruelties of omission.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, A View Of The Harbour

“Half of great writing or speaking is not saying everything that you can say.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Discussions about High Altitude Observatory Diseases (HAOD) are a notable omission from professional astronomy conferences.”
― Steven Magee

“Omission is not technically a lie. It's a cold comfort.”
― Maddy Kobar, From Out of Feldspar

“Every sin of commission has its root in a sin of omission”
― Varma Jampana

“Omission is not brevity.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Tacerea echivaleaza cu minciuna: ambele sunt impenetrabile, desi prima e mai putin abila.”
― Ioan Petru Culianu, Hesperus

“Even when the elephant leaves the room, there is a massive amount of dung.”
― Wyatt Pringle Jr

“A lie by omission is still a lie,' ...”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, A Shadow in the Ember

“He had often been put into a time-out to "think about what he said," but when he did, he never wanted to revise his original words. Eventually her learned to guess what people wanted to hear and what they didn't . To him, it had always felt like lying. Wasn't an omission just as bad as an untruth?”
― Jodi Picoult, By Any Other Name