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The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: Focus on clarity. Concentrate on precisions. Don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.

David Gerrold

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David Gerrold
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: January 24
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Beauty
Sentences
Language
Communication
Constructing
Comes
Lessons
Accuracy
Beautiful
Meaning
Precision
Important
Single
Concentrate
Writing
Style
Lesson
Focus
Clarity
Worry
Effective

More quotes by David Gerrold

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Imagine yourself in the scene. See what there is to be seen. Listen to the sounds. Touch the world. Smell the air. Taste it. Use all of your senses. Then evoke those experiences for the reader. If you give the audience the flavor, they'll flesh out the moment in their own imaginations.
David Gerrold
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Doesn't anybody ever want to talk about anything else besides 'Star Trek?' There were 79 episodes of the series there were 55 different writers. I was only one of them.
David Gerrold
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The secret of the universe is this: The universe doesn't care. That part of the job is yours.
David Gerrold
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My approach to 'Star Trek' was, 'I know science fiction, and I know screen writing.' That was very arrogant of me, but you really need to be a little bit arrogant to think that what you have to say is good enough to justify the expense of hundreds of thousands - now millions of dollars - to make an episode of the TV show.
David Gerrold
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The fifties are a peaceful time, a quiet sleeping time between two noisy bursts of years, a blue and white time filled with sweet yellow days, music and bright smelling memories.
David Gerrold
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Contentment is the continuing act of accepting the process of your own life.
David Gerrold
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Who are we? And to me that's the essential question that's always been in science fiction. A lot of science fiction stories are - at their very best - evocations of that question. When we look up at the night sky and wonder, Is there anyone else out there? we're also asking who we are we in relation to them.
David Gerrold
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Life has a peculiar habit -- once established, it stays. Sometimes it even thrives.
David Gerrold
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It's almost always dangerous to be right too soon.
David Gerrold
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Understanding the laws of nature does not mean that we are immune to their operations.
David Gerrold
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Star Trek' is the McDonald's of science fiction it's fast food storytelling. Every problem is like every other problem. They all get solved in an hour. Nobody ever gets hurt, and nobody needs to care. You give up an hour of your time, and you don't really have to get involved. It's all plastic.
David Gerrold
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Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.
David Gerrold
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Death comes black and hard, rushing down on me from the future, with no possible chance of escape.
David Gerrold
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In the 20th century, we had a century where at the beginning of the century, most of the world was agricultural and industry was very primitive. At the end of that century, we had men in orbit, we had been to the moon, we had people with cell phones and colour televisions and the Internet and amazing medical technology of all kinds.
David Gerrold
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Incompetency fed on itself.
David Gerrold
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The jingling of a fat purse always commands the world.
David Gerrold
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When I was a kid, my favorite movies were the George Pal version of 'War Of The Worlds,' 'Them,' and 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers.' Those movies were scary! They haunted my nightmares for years, so when I started writing, I wanted to write a story that was just as big and just as scary.
David Gerrold
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To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writer's build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.
David Gerrold
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I had always been fascinated by the whole idea that Australia was this different ecology and that when rabbits and prickly pears and other things from Europe were introduced into Australia, they ran amok.
David Gerrold
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Of course life is bizarre, the more bizarre it gets, the more interesting it is. The only way to approach it is to make yourself some popcorn and enjoy the show.
David Gerrold