“Easy writing makes hard reading.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
As quoted in Paris Was Our Mistress (1947) by Samuel Putnam, p. 128
Cornell Chronicle interview (1999)
“Easy writing makes hard reading.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
As quoted in Paris Was Our Mistress (1947) by Samuel Putnam, p. 128
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)
Also attributed to Ernest Hemingway and others; the earliest definite occurrence of this yet found in research for Wikiquote is by Maya Angelou, who stated it in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) edited by Jeffrey M. Elliot:
I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing
The statement she referred to is most probably:
You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading
Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (written 1771, published 1819) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Disputed
“You write with ease to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading.”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-British politician, playwright and writer
Clio's Protest (1819).
“No efforts of mine could avail to make the book easy reading.”
Ronald Fisher book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
Preface, p. x.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)
“I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read.”
Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl
[199710120226.TAA06867@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997
Michael Nava (1954) American writer
Source: Henry Rios series of novels, The Death of Friends (1996), p.189
Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist
'Borgias on my mind'
Essays and reviews, Glued to the Box (1983)
“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Misquote: It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 302