Infinitives In Quotes & Sayings

Three old women were bending in the fields. What use is it to question us? they said. Well it shortly became clear that they knew everything there is to know about the snowy fields and the blue green shoots and the plant called "audacity", which poets mistake for violets. I began to copy out everything that was said ... I will do anything to escape boredom. It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough. — Anne Carson

I sutured split infinitives and hoisted dangling modifiers and wore out the seam of my best flannel skirt. — Amor Towles

one of the most famous split infinitives ... To boldly go — Terry Fallis

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before
and thus was the Empire forged. — Douglas Adams

To boldly split infinitives that no man had split before ... — Douglas Adams

There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They're too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer's less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they're guardians of language. They're no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind. — Stephen Fry

American Heritage Dictionary: "The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin. . . . In general, the Usage Panel accepts the split infinitive." Merriam-Webster Unabridged online dictionary: "Even though there has never been a rational basis for objecting to the split infinitive, the subject has become a fixture of folk belief about grammar. . . . Modern commentators . . . usually say it's all right to split an infinitive in the interest of clarity. Since clarity is the usual reason for splitting, this advice means merely that you can split them whenever you need to." Encarta World English Dictionary: "There is no grammatical basis for rejecting split infinitives. — Steven Pinker

Help me, Mikey, she wanted to say. I'm afraid. More afraid than you'd ever believe.' And he'd take her hand and they'd fly across the rooftops and up into space and sit on some planet and watch a double sunrise or maybe a star being born or some other event that no human had ever seen, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. And she'd tell him everything. — Jenny Downham

I feel a number of people who will never be students whom I'm corresponding with inwardly. — Frederick Lenz

On a few words of what is real in the world
I nourish myself. I defend myself against
Whatever remains. — Wallace Stevens

Wonder, like life, ignores logic. — Marty Rubin

There is a wrong way to look for advice,
and there is a right way that will suffice.
Seek truth and all will be alright,
not what you want to hear,
not what you want to be right. — Matshona Dhliwayo

headlights swung over and past me. I ignored them, staring — James Patterson

Your writing blows, by the by. You split more infinitives than Gene Roddenberry. — Brian K. Vaughan

WARNING
This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank. If that sort of thing bothers you, then gentle reader pass by, for we endeavor only to entertain, not to offend. That said, if that's the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story! — Christopher Moore

Astonishing times. Who would have imagined that the Crazy Gang would yield a Hollywood film star (Vinny Jones), a British television ever-present (John Fashanu) and now a televised African dance champion? — Giles Smith

In the States, you can buy Chinese food. In Beijing you can buy hamburger. It's very close. Now I feel the world become a big family, like a really big family. You have many neighbors. Not like before, two countries are far away. — Jet Li

If you go through any newspaper or magazine and look for active, kicking verbs in the sentences, you will realize that this lack of well used verbs is the main trouble with modern English writing. Almost all nonfiction nowadays is written in a sort of pale, colorless sauce of passives and infinitives, motionless and flat as paper. — Rudolf Flesch

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before
and thus was the Empire forged.
... In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. — Douglas Adams

I am an artist and have no right buggering about with verbs and split infinitives, which is what being a writer says to me. — Ralph Steadman

I already killed you once... And I bet you'll come back again and again... No matter how many times I slaughter you. Your tendency to come back from the brink of death has nothing to do with your healing factor. Your mutant power isn't regeneration. It's popularity. — Cullen Bunn

Don LaFontaine passed away. He passed away from a blood clot in the lung. It was unexpected. It just happened. I was just blown away by it. He was like, "Pablo, I've got something in my lungs, I don't know what it is." And I said, "What is it?" And he says, "I don't know, it just keeps hurting." And then he left me a message saying, "I'll come see you when I get out of here." And it never happened. — Pablo Francisco

He spares no resource in telling of his dead inventions ... Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the passing colloquialism into his service. His vast paragraphis sweat and struggle; the — H.G.Wells

This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional gramar, split infinitives, and the odd wank. — Christopher Moore

It was an instinct to put the world in order that powered her mending split infinitives and snipping off dangling participles, smoothing away the knots and bumps until the prose before her took on a sheen, like perfect caramel. — David Leavitt