How long is too long?

[aaronic_abacus]

When I use this program, there's no way to stop it.
I've been thinking of measuring the character length with STRLEN of Phrase$ and denying any that are too long.
My question is how long is too long, and how short is too short?
Or is there a way of canceling the routine in the middle?
I've also been thinking of using SUBSTR to shorten the string length.

(defun c:SayIt ()

 (setq Phrase$ (getstring T "Enter string: "))
 (setq Phrase$l (strlen Phrase$))
 (if (< Phrase$l 256)
  (progn

   (vl-load-com)
   (setq sapi (vlax-create-object "Sapi.SpVoice"))
   (vlax-invoke sapi "Speak" Phrase$ 0)
   (vlax-release-object sapi)

 ));end progn/if


 (princ)
);defun c:SayIt

[aaronic_abacus]

So, I settled for this. Now the program limits the character length to 1000, which takes less than 1.5 minutes to read.

(defun c:SayIt ()
 (setq Phrase$ (getstring T "Enter string: "))
 (setq Phrase$l (strlen Phrase$))
 (if (> Phrase$l 1000) (setq Phrase$ (substr Phrase$ 1 1000)))
 (vl-load-com)
 (setq sapi (vlax-create-object "Sapi.SpVoice"))
 (vlax-invoke sapi "Speak" Phrase$ 0)
 (vlax-release-object sapi)
 (princ)
);defun c:SayIt