Language Clarity Quotes

I try to keep my sentences quite pared back. What I really want to do is observe people's relationships and interactions. I don't want language to get in the way of that. It's quite a difficult process to achieve that, for the language to feel clear.

Why say 'utilize' when you can say 'use'?

Any order that can be misunderstood, will be misunderstood

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly. Ludwig Wittgenstein

English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.

I'm one of those people who writes out words. All of my text messages? You can read them. Everyone would know what I'm trying to say. My sister will say 'BTW.' Do you mean 'by the way'? Is that what you're trying to say?

That is not good language which all understand not.

Anyone should be very suspicious of a sentence he's written that can't be read aloud easily.

Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.

No matter what any of the grammar teachers say, punctuation is an arbitrary matter. It should be used to make sentences clear.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

A candidate for office can have no greater advantage than muddled syntax; no greater liability than a command of language.

Words should be only the clothes, carefully custom-made to fit the thought.

Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.

Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.

I think drama school really teaches you how to annunciate; you're conscious that people might not understand you if you speak too fast and too Welsh.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.

I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

How do I know the Bible isn't the word of God? Well if it was the word of God it would be clear and easy to understand...considering God was the creator of LANGUAGE!

I think MTV should consider using subtitles. Half the time, even I can't understand what the fu*k I'm talking about.

In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear you the way you want to be heard.

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you can't understand them. The best sentence? The shortest.

Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.

The whole end of speech is to be understood.