“I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”~ Dorothy Parker
“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
Walden. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Quotes That Need No Comment
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://onthehomefrontandbeyond.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/quotes-that-need-no-comment/trackback/
So true and such good quotes!
I also love, “If I’d had more time, I’d have written a shorter letter.” – Mark Twain
certainly in the same spirit
They were wise!
and tell hard truths
very much so
Exactly.
i love dorothy parker-her poetry, her reviews, her short stories. i give a copy of the dorothy parker reader to every young woman i know. i am amazed by how many of them had never read her work.
what an excellent thing you are doing – Ms. Parker was the first Ms.!
My only comment – these quotes are thought provoking with many interpretations.
Cheers
absolutely – thought-provoking in a good way, I hope?
I agree wholeheartedly to both of them. Always have. Wish I didn’t have this problem, but I do. I write way too much then I have to go back and edit and cut and cut and edit and where was I going with this? I’ll stop. Now. Before I write too much. And I have to go back and take some out. But which seven do I cut and which five do I leave.
See what I mean?? Brevity is not one of my virtues. But if I really try and write about what is one of my virtues, I guess it would be….
your virtues are too many to name. my 200 word challenge taught me a lot–it is hard to be brief. In reading blogs I find myself lazy (unless it is someone special like you or julie or heidi or robin or anna –okay there are too many to name) I find that if they do not go on forever I am more likely to read them. If I am really interested in a subject, I will read it at length, but if I am only semi-interested and it is long — then I tend to skim.
Sure are a lot of comments on quotes that need no comments!
they needed no comment from me – I welcome all the comments from you guys
Very funny.
I know this comment is meant for 50′s and beyond — and it is funny
“Brevity is the soul of lingerie”. Another Dorothy Parker quote. Maybe that’s the only time to be brief, not necessary for the written word.
cool – this is a good one – sounds so Dorothy Parkerish
Enjoyed all the quotes… yours and the ones contributed by your commenters, as well!
don’t I have some of the best commenters (you included) in the world? I am sure you do too – but I am immensely lucky!
INDEED, particularly the Thoreau
indeed
Oh I am so good at changing words too….!!
It is the nature of the beast
No flipping kidding. Sigh.
sigh returned – it is all part of it isn’t it?
Oh Dorothy. She was so pithy and so wise.
exactly
Absolutely. Dorothy Parker was so funny. I hadn’t heard the “brevity” quote (but sometimes think of “you can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think” – not very PC nowadays…).
so many many things are not PC — poor Dorothy would have had quite a time today
“I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”~ Dorothy Parker
Oh, how I relate to this.
But, in consolation: a good writer is a good editor.
so true – without that element, writers are hard to read