Punctuation Quotes - Page 5

• I realized that my kisses with Dane had become a form of punctuation, the quotations or the hasty dash at the end of a conversation

  Lisa Kleypas

  Kissing, Ends, Form

  Lisa Kleypas (2015). “The Travis Family Series, Books 1-3: Blue-Eyed Devil, Smooth Taking Stranger and Sugar Daddy”, p.252, St. Martin's Press

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• Why, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and without punctuation, but not much to tell.

  Charles Dickens

  Pipers, Deals, Bleak House

  Charles Dickens (2016). “Bleak House (Diversion Classics)”, p.185, Diversion Books

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• Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.

  Haruki Murakami

  Butterfly, Sight, Punctuation Marks

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jun 18, 2015

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• I think for a minute. Watching my wife fade into the distance, I put a hand on my heart. "Dead." I wave a hand toward my wife. "Dead." My eyes drift toward the sky and lose their focus. "Want it...to hurt. But...doesn't." Julie looks at me like she's waiting for more, and I wonder if I've expressed anything at all with my halting, mumbled soliloquy. Are my words ever actually audible, or do they just echo in my head while people stare at me, waiting? I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses.

  Isaac Marion

  Hurt, Distance, Eye

  Isaac Marion (2012). “Warm Bodies: A Novel”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• Balthazar was the kind of guy who used totally correct spelling and punctuation even when he was texting, which was sort of bizarrely hot. She was in serious trouble if commas could get her going.

  Claudia Gray

  Guy, Hot, Texting

  Claudia Gray (2012). “Balthazar”, p.23, Harper Collins

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• Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.

  Lynne Truss

  Drawing, Roots, Attention

  "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation". Book by Lynne Truss, www.today.com. November 6, 2003.

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• But phony, Hemingway was not, and poseur he was not. He did not shoot lions and leopards because he was searching for the answer to life. He shot lions and leopards because he bloody well liked to hunt and shoot, and killing was the best punctuation mark at the end of the intricate and fascinating process of hunting.

  Robert Ruark

  Hunting, Punctuation Marks, Leopards

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• I come from an Italian family. One of the greatest and most profound expressions we would ever use in conversations or arguments was a slamming door. The slamming door was our punctuation mark.

  Mario Batali

  Italian, Doors, Expression

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• What would it be like to live in a library of melted books. With sentences streaming over the floor and all the punctuation settled to the bottom as a residue. It would be confusing. Unforgivable. A great adventure.

  Anne Carson

  Book, Adventure, Confusing

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• Thus, the technique of metropolitan life is unimaginable without the most punctual integration of all activities and mutual relations into a stable and impersonal time schedule.

  Georg Simmel

  Technique, Schedules, Life Is

  Georg Simmel, Kurt H. Wolff (1950). “The Sociology of Georg Simmel”, p.413, Simon and Schuster

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• Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can't read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Ideas, Interesting, Momentum

  "The Constant Art of Being a Writer" by N. M. Kelby, (p. 102), 2009.

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• Color is a major element in scale. A small room can have a larger look by the use of closely related values, hues, and intensity. A large room can be made to look smaller by marked contrasts of color and value, hue, and intensity. Value is one of the most important elements. Whether light or dark, little value contrast makes for unity, and sharper contrast makes for stronger punctuation.

  Van Day Truex

  Dark, Color, Small Rooms

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• Finally, I would thank, had I not lost his name and address, a gentleman in America, who has generously and gratuitously corrected the punctuation, the botany, the entomology, the geography, and the chronology of previous works of mine and will, I hope, not spare his services on the present occasion.

  Virginia Woolf

  Names, America, Gentleman

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1140, Delphi Classics

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• What is said determines who listens and who understands. Graphic design is a language, but graphic designers are so busy worrying about the nuances - accents, punctuation and so on - that they spend little time thinking about what the words add up to. I’m interested in using our communication skills to change the way things are.

  Tibor Kalman

  Communication, Thinking, Skills

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

  Russell Baker

  Writing, Play, Roles

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• Hope. It's like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It's a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it's the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.

  Tahereh Mafi

  Hope, Rain, Sky

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• I write in the most distressingly slow way in terms of punctuation and grammar.

  Maurice Saatchi

  Writing, Way, Grammar

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• 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.

  Brian P. Cleary

  Book, Speech, Alphabet

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• This morning arrives a letter from my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie, a man whom I have not seen nor had communication with for forty-four years. . . . [Footnote: Roughing It is dedicated to Higbie.] . . . I shall allow myself the privilege of copying his punctuation and his spelling, for to me they are a part of the man. He is as honest as the day is long. He is utterly simple-minded and straightforward, and his spelling and his punctuation are as simple and honest as he is himself. He makes no apology for them, and no apology is needed.

  Mark Twain

  Morning, Communication, Apology

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• Punctuation is biological. It is the physical indication of the body-rhythms which the reader is to acknowledge.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Body, Language, Rhythm

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• To some people, the fact that I am not married, or don't have children, would be the reason I have written a book on punctuation.

  Lynne Truss

  Children, Book, People

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

  Andy Rooney

  Teacher, Arbitrary, Matter

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• The one affectation I have forced on the publisher... are my apostrophe-free ellisions. Because I write my scripts to read myself, I dont spell 'don't' with an apostrophe. I spell it 'dont'. We all know the word and it seems foolish to put in an extraneous apostrophe. Punctuation marks are devices we use to make the meaning of sentences clear. There is nothing confusing about a word like 'dont' printed without an apostrophe to indicate an omitted letter.

  Andy Rooney

  Writing, Punctuation Marks, Confusing

  "Years of Minutes: The Best of Rooney from 60 Minutes". Book by Andy Rooney (Foreword, p. 13), 2003.

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• Ordinary speciation remains fully adequate to explain the causes and phenomenology of punctuation.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Ordinary, Phenomenology, Adequate

  Stephen Jay Gould (2002). “The Structure of Evolutionary Theory”, p.1001, Harvard University Press

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• Stupid word, that. Period. In America it means 'full stop,' like in punctuation. That's stupid as well. A period isn't a full stop. It's a new beginning. I don't mean all that creativity, life-giving force, earth-mother stuff, I mean it's a new beginning to the month, relief that you're not pregnant, when you don't have to have a child.

  Michelene Wandor

  Mother, Children, Stupid

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