Adjective Usage Quotes

Epithets, like pepper, Give zest to what you write; And if you strew them sparely, They whet the appetite: But if you lay them on too thick, You spoil the matter quite!

If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective.

Advertising has annihilated the power of the most powerful adjectives.

A musician's attempt to summarize his or her work leads to all this prescriptive chatter, or what I call the 'Modifier's Madness.' A lot of adjectives working overtime.

Lord Darlington (LD): I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules. Lady Windemere (LW): If we had 'hard-and-fast rules' we would find life much simpler. LD: You allow of no exceptions? LW: None! LD: Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, LW. LW: The adjective was unnecessary, LD.

Adjectives are the curse of America.

Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it.

When you catch an adjective, kill it.

An adjective, such as 'flimsy,' describes someone's access to a thing, such as 'argument.' But that's just that someone's access. It may be accurate. But it's theirs nevertheless.

I start looking for adjectives in news reporting, and if there are too many of them, if they're all sort of repeatedly designed to influence my thinking in a certain way, I start getting concerned. I'm leery of people trying to paint a picture in a certain way.

When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.

If you set out to write an adjective novel, you're setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it.

Christian' makes a poor adjective

Once she read a book but found it distasteful because it contained adjectives.

Cliches and adjectives permeated my prose.

I did an audiobook for 'Rough Crossings,' which I thought was one of the best books I had published. But it was an absolute embarrassment to read it. All these horrible mucked-up bits of syntax, over-the-top adjectives. I found myself editing it while reading. Alert listeners will notice the difference.

How can an adjective in front of a noun not describe the noun? There are dwarf stars, but they're still considered stars.

Rather, very, little, pretty - these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then.

As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

It is amusing to detect character in the vocabulary of each person. The adjectives habitually used, like the inscriptions on a thermometer, indicate the temperament.

When you catch an adjective, kill it - perhaps the best possible advice for budding writers.

I figure anytime you put an adjective before 'writer,' it's a way of dismissing the writer.

anything being perceived as being superior takes the noun. And everything that isn't, that's judged to be inferior, requires an adjective. So there are black novelists and novelists. There are women physicians and physicians. Male nurses and nurses.