Be Terse Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[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

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

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

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

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

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

The wet, fleshy lips of his slightly open mouth were the origins of another unexpected reaction of mine to which I also gave in. I suddenly felt the emotional desire of kissing that mouth....
[T]hat sense of disgust that was invariably joined to the mere idea of kissing another male was not present now in the thoughts I kept turning in my mind about kissing him, and tasting the flavor of his sensuous lips. I also felt like nibbling the curve of his bony jaw and going down over his thick, muscular neck, to leave a trace of me in every pore of his terse skin, in a trail of lust and pleasure. ~ Jeff X

The Order will not splinter," Lucan replied, terse with fury for what Dragos was forcing them to consider. "We are warriors, Brethren. We are kin. We will not let anyone scatter us in terror."

Gideon nodded, solemn and silent. "Yeah," he said, meeting their gazes. "Fuck me, right? Totally crap idea. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. ~ Lara Adrian

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