Verbosity Quotes

“When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer

“You have a faculty for defining the simplest in terms of the grandiose, so that a poor devil like me can't understand it.”
― Malcolm Bradbury, Eating People Is Wrong

“Some people talk too much without saying a lot.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Verbosity wastes a portion of the reader’s or listener’s life.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Network: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections [....]

Reticulated: Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.”
― Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary Of The English Language: In Which The Words Are Deduced From Their Originals, And Illustrated In Their Different Significations By Examples

“While Nape was making the bread and Dryas boiling the ram, Daphnis and Chloe had time to go forth as far as the ivy-bush; and when he had set his snares again and pricked his lime-twigs, they not only catched good store of birds, but had a sweet collation of kisses without intermission, and a dear conversation in the language of love: "Chloe, I came for thy sake." "I know it, Daphnis." "'Tis long of thee that I destroy the poor birds." "What wilt thou with me?" "Remember me." "I remember thee, by the Nymphs by whom heretofore I have sworn in yonder cave, whither we will go as soon as ever the snow melts." "But it lies very deep, Chloe, and I fear I shall melt before the snow." "Courage, man; the Sun burns hot." "I would it burnt like that fire which now burns my very heart." "You do but gibe and cozen me!" "I do not, by the goats by which thou didst once bid me to swear to thee.”
― Longus (Longos), Daphnis and Chloe / The Love Romances of Parthenius and Other fragments

“He gave me a look of great contempt; as I supposed, for venturing, even by implication, to draw a parallel between a lack of affluence that might, literally, affect my purchase of rare vintages, and a figure of speech intended delicately to convey his own dire want for the bare necessities of life. He remained silent for several seconds, as if trying to make up his mind whether he could ever bring himself to speak to me again; and then said gruffly: 'I've got to go now.”
― Anthony Powell, A Buyer's Market

“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, The Light is the Darkness

“But at the next flare a big tree on the hill seemed to turn into fire before their eyes, every branch, twig, and leaf, and a purple cloud hung over it.

'Did you hear that crack?' asked Robbie Bell. 'That were its bones.'

'Why do you little niggers talk so much!' said Doc. 'Nobody’s profiting by this information.'

'We always talks this much,' said Sam, 'but now everybody so quiet, they hears us.'

("The Wide Net")”
― Eudora Welty, The Collected Stories

“People who talk too much are tiresome, especially those who are not informative, thought-provoking, or funny.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Long-bodied, long-worded Johnny cocked an ear.
"A tintamarrous bombilation!" he remarked.
"Sounds more like a fight to me," Monk muttered.
Ham said, "That, short-and-hairy, is what he meant.”
― Kenneth Robeson, The Freckled Shark

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

“We often say a lot about ourselves by saying only a few words, or nothing at all.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“..when questioned about their favorite techniques or their best loved authors, writers will talk incessantly, in the same way the sick become particularly garrulous when we inquire after their ailments; the difference being that writers can't help talking about something that saves them, whereas the sick can't help talking about the thing that is dragging them under.”
― Andrés Neuman, Talking to Ourselves

“Omission is not brevity.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Vituperating verbosity often masks linguistic laziness - Franklin Thomas Human”
― Franklin Human

“Vituperating verbosity often masks linguistic laziness”
― Franklin Human

“To vituperate verbosity is often to veil one’s own linguistic laziness.”
― Franklin Human