Quotes & Sayings About Passive Voice

Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity, - the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heavens artillery, - but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggots life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And the fear od death, of God, of the universe, comes over him, - the hope of the Resurrection and the life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence, - it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.
- The White Silence — Jack London

You were coshed with a fireplace poker," Mrs. Seaton said, bending over him to sift through the hair above his nape. "These wounds will require careful cleaning." She wadded up his shirt and folded it to hold against the scalp wound. "Passive voice," the earl said through clenched teeth, "will not protect you, Mrs. Seaton, since you did the coshing. Jesus and the apostles, that hurts." Her hand came up to hold his forehead even as she continued to press the linen of his ruined shirt against the bleeding wound. "The bleeding is slowing down," she said, "and the wounds on your back are not as messy." "Happily for me," her patient muttered. — Grace Burrowes

Be as vigilantly on guard against translating such a sentence into the passive voice as you would against committing murder. — Jay Rubin

Book authors are in high demand for speaking engagements and appearances; they are the new 'celebrity' and celebrities gain access. Authors not only make money from royalties or book advances but from their keynotes, presentations and strategically branded product lines. This includes entrepreneurial ideas for you to extend yourself beyond just writing and prepares you to add speaking and consulting to your revenue stream. You have to begin to look outside book sales and towards the speaking market. There are radio, interviews, news, television, small channel television keynotes, lectures, seminars and workshops. These types of events have the possibility to be much more lucrative than just selling books. In essence, the book builds and brands you in the public eye. It gives you credibility and the opportunity to be more than you are. It enables you to now be a voice, a teacher, a leader, an expert - after all, you wrote the book on it! — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice - that is, until we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say, "I lost it. — Sydney J. Harris

Never use the passive voice. Do not say, 'It will get done.' Say, 'I'll do it,' and then stick to a solid, unwavering deadline — Gina Barreca

Using the passive voice is always very helpful. Mind you, a lot of that propaganda English emanates from here. The British establishment has always used the passive voice. It's been a weapon of discourse so those who committed terrible acts in the old empire could not be identified. — John Pilger

I use "perpetrated" because it's the kind of word that passive-voice writers are fond of. They prefer long words of Latin origin to short Anglo-Saxon words - which compounds their trouble and makes their sentences still more glutinous. Short is better than long. Of the 701 words in — William Zinsser

The passive voice could always be used to obscure blame. — Lorrie Moore

Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation. — William Safire

I believe in making my potential models comfortable,' he explained when she shot a surprised look at him. 'I'm considerate, unlike some artists who bend their sitters into difficult positions and expect them to stay there for hours. My demands are entirely reasonable.'
For a moment, her libido got interested in his demands. What would it be like to listen to the soft caress of his voice as he told her how he wanted her? To have those midnight-blue eyes roam over every inch of her body? To be passive, helpless, whilst he did whatever he pleased? — Christine Stovell

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. — George Orwell

Passive voice is better than writing out a humongous number and taking the risk that your readers' brains will be numb by the time they get to the verb. — Mignon Fogarty

Live in the active voice, rather than passive. Think more about what you happen than what is happening to you. — William DeWitt Hyde

To love is not a passive thing. To love is active voice. When I love I do something, I function, I give. I do not love in order that I may be loved back again, but for the creative joy of loving. And every time I do so love I am freed, at least a little, by the outgoing of love, from enslavement to that most intolerable of master, myself ... — Bernard Iddings Bell

All research scientists know that writing in the passive voice is artificial; they are not disembodied observers, but people doing research. — Rupert Sheldrake

For all my life, I had been passive when faced with dangers. I was stunned as I swam to find that I had, for the first time in my history, asserted myself and been truly heard - respected. It felt monumental, I was buzzing with adrenaline. It was as if I'd become someone else entirely.

I had escaped a kidnapper. It finally felt real. My body unclenched tension in the balmy pool.

I was proud of the strength I'd found. I was the one who asserted he take me back; I caused him to listen. I was no longer a passive Doll Girl, trapped. This was me learning I could trust my voice - I'd used it, and it finally worked! I was triumphant. This escape showed me: I had grown, and grown vividly. — Aspen Matis

Ashe was typical of that strata of mankind which conducts its human relationships according to a principle of challenge and response. Where there was softness, he would advance; where he found resistance, retreat. Having himself no particular opinions or tastes he relied upon whatever conformed with those of his companion. He was as ready to drink tea at Fortnum's as beer at the Prospect of Whitby; he would listen to military music in St. James's Park or jazz in Compton Street cellar; his voice would tremble with sympathy when he spoke of Sharpeville, or with indignation at the growth of Britain's colored population. To Leamas this observably passive role was repellent; it brought out the bully in him, so that he would lead the other gently into a position where he was committed, and then himself withdraw, so that Ashe was constantly scampering back from some cul-de-sac into which Leamas had enticed him. — John Le Carre

Strunk and White don't speculate as to why so many writers are attracted to passive verbs, but I'm willing to; I think timid writers like them for the same reason timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe. — Stephen King

When someone says something petty or nasty, one of those little passive-aggressive things that would usually just pick at me for days, my new response is not to shut the door and bitch to anyone who will listen. Now? The moment they say it? "What did you mean by that?" I ask in a calm voice. It — Shonda Rhimes

Messrs. Strunk and White don't speculate as to why so many writers are attracted to passive verbs, but I'm willing to; I think timid writers like them for the same reason timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe. There is no troublesome action to contend with; the subject just has to close its eyes and think of England, to paraphrase Queen Victoria. I think unsure writers also feel the passive voice somehow lends their work authority, perhaps even a quality of majesty. If you find instruction manuals and lawyers' torts majestic, I guess it does. — Stephen King

The single problem plaguing all students in all schools everywhere is the crisis of disconnection. Meaningful Student Involvement happens when the roles of students are actively re-aligned from being the passive recipients of schools to becoming active partners throughout the educational process. — Adam Fletcher

God calls us to have strength in our character and conduct, not simply a stiff upper lip in sorrow or a stubborn persistence during hardship. Secondarily, because the word is "passive voice," we know that the strength God demands He also provides. The strength does not come from a place inside us but a source beyond ourselves, namely, the Lord. — James MacDonald

There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel. — Charles Baxter

'TIME's spell-check always admonishes me whenever I compose a sentence in the passive voice, a warning that is often ignored by me. — Richard Corliss

The simplest and cheapest of all reforms within institutional science is to switch from the passive to the active voice in writing about science. — Rupert Sheldrake

Holmes had cultivated the ability to still the noise of the mind, by smoking his pipe and playing nontunes on the violin. He once compared this mental state with the sort of passive seeing that enables the eye, in a dim light or at a great distance, to grasp details with greater clarity by focusing slightly to one side of the object of interest. When active, strained vision only obscures and frustrates, looking away often permits the eyes to see and interpret the shapes of what it sees. Thus does inattention allow the mind to register the still, small whisper of the daughter of the voice. — Laurie R. King

You Can't Kill the Spirit resonates with the voices and power of women around the globe who have refused to be either passive or violent but instead act firmly and imaginatively to oppose oppression in its many guises. A wonderful tonic for activists and a treasure for those who teach, these stories bring women's history to life. — Charlotte Bunch

The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding. — Benjamin Lee Whorf

Some of the worst writing around suffers from inert verbs and the unintended use of the passive voice. Yet the passive voice remains an important arrow in the rhetorical quiver. After all, it exists for a reason. — Constance Hale

It is precisely in that relationship to the Reader that you will find most of the classic faults of style: pretension, condescension, servility, obscurantism, grandiosity, vulgarity, and the like
even academicism. That's why most faults of style can be described in language relevant to human relations. Is your style frank and open ... does it have some understated agenda ... is it out to prove something it does not or cannot admit ... is it trying to impress ... show off ... is it kissing up ... groveling ... maybe just a tad passive-aggressive, with a mumbling half-audible voice that is unwilling to explain ... is it trying to convince ... overwhelm ... help ... seduce ... give pleasure ... inflict pain ... There is no area of the writer's work that is more responsive to the psychology of human connection than style. — Stephen Koch

Primer of Love [Lesson 14]
I think the best thing I can do is to be a distraction.
A husband lives and breathes his work all day long.
If he comes home to more table thumping,
how can the poor man ever relax?
- Jackie Kennedy

Lesson 14) Learn to nip lover's quarrels in the bud
by distraction and humor -- without raising your voice.

This does not include mastering that passive aggressive ploy called the silent treatment which is much louder and destructive than outright screaming. Nipping techniques include distraction, humor, rough sex and counting backwards from MCLV in Latin.Once you've mastered this technique, you'll spend the night neatly tucked in each other's arms -- though her ass will be a little sore. No argument about that. — Beryl Dov

Objectivity is the subject subjugating the object. That is how you assert yourself. You make yourself the active voice and the object is the passive no-voice. — Emily Levine

Ultimately, Roger learned only of the encounter with the urban bees. The boy remained thoroughly fascinated by what he heard nonetheless, his blue-eyed stare never once straying from Holmes; his visage passive and accepting, his eyes wide, Roger's pupils stated fixed on those venerable, reflective eyes, as though the boy were seeing distant lights shimmering along an opaque horizon, a glimpse of something flickering and alive existing beyond his reach. And, in turn, the gray eyes that focused sharply on him - piercing and kind at the same instant - endeavoured to bridge the lifetime that separated the two of them, attempting to do so as brandy was sipped, and the vial's glass grew warmer against soft palms, and that seasoned, well-lived voice somehow made Roger feel much older and more worldly than his years. — Mitch Cullin

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

Two pages of the passive voice - just about any business document ever written, in other words, not to mention reams of bad fiction - make me want to scream. It's weak, it's circuitous, and it's frequently tortuous, as well. How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. Oh, man - who farted, right? A simpler way to express this idea - sweeter and more forceful, as well - might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it. I'm not in love with this because it uses with twice in four words, but at least we're out of that awful passive voice. — Stephen King