Edmond Rostand Quotes

With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semicolin; it's a useful little chap

And if you want to know why great editors scare the pants off of writers everywhere, read 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' by Lynne Truss. The punctuation police are everywhere!

I don't think, in my entire 18 years as a student, I ever used an exclamation point in an academic paper.

Punctuation, is? fun!

A comma . . . catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling, and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table.

I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.

I am not a grammarian. Maybe my style is eccentric.

Semicolons . . . signal, rather than shout, a relationship. . . . A semicolon is a compliment from the writer to the reader. It says: "I don't have to draw you a picture; a hint will do."

For any true stickler, you see, the sight of the plural word “Book’s” with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly accelerated. First there is shock. Within seconds, shock gives way to disbelief, disbelief to pain, and pain to anger. Finally (and this is where the analogy breaks down), anger gives way to a righteous urge to perpetrate an act of criminal damage with the aid of a permanent marker.

Here is a les­son in writ­ing. First rule: Do not use semi­colons. They are trans­ves­tite her­maph­ro­dites rep­re­sent­ing absolutely noth­ing. All they do is show you've been to col­lege.

One must regard the hyphen as a blemish to be avoided wherever possible.

I try to write conversationally; I try to write like people speak and put the emphasis on the right syllable.

I'd rather fiddle with my phone for precious seconds than neglect an apostrophe; I'd rather insert a word laboriously keyed out than resort to predictive texting for a - acceptable to some - synonym.

It's always nice to end your sentences with an exclamation mark, and not a comma.

I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.

In true prose everything must be underlined.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split.

I like all things grammatical, and I had already written several books about parts of speech, and even the alphabet, so everything that makes up a sentence and even a word was covered except for punctuation.

I like commas. I detest semi-colons - I don't think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn't need them, they were fly-specks on the page.

Sometimes with 'The New Yorker,' they have grammar rules that just don't feel right in my mouth.

Each time I see a split infinitive, an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister.

Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.

I found a great many pieces of punctuation and typography lying around dormant when I came along - and I must say I had a good time using them.

I used to enjoy using dots where they would be least expected, not at the end of a sentence but in the middle, creating the effect... of a skipped beat. It seemed to me the mind reacted - first!... in dots, dashes, and exclamation points, then rationalized, drew up a brief, with periods.