Punctuate Quotes & Sayings

It is the most astonishing thing that persons who have not sufficient education to spell correctly, to punctuate properly, to place capital letters in the right places, should, when other means of support fail, send mss. for publication. — Fanny Fern

I believe the defining moment was when certain persons, who shall remain nameless, objected to my fuchsia silk striped waistcoat. I loved that waistcoat. I put my foot down, right then and there; I do not mind telling you!" To punctuate his deeply offended feelings, he stamped one silver-and-pearl-decorated high heel firmly. "No one tells me what I can and cannot wear!" He snapped up a lace fan from where it lay on a hall table and fanned himself vigorously with it for emphasis. — Gail Carriger

Harry has kissed Craig so many times, but this is different from all of the kisses that have come before. At first there were the excited dating kisses, the kisses used to punctuate their liking of each other, the kisses that were both proof and engine of their desire. Then the more serious kisses, the it's-getting-serious kisses, followed by the relationship kisses - that variety pack, sometimes intense, sometimes resigned, sometimes playful, sometimes confused. Kisses that led to making out and kisses that led to saying goodbye. Kisses to mark territory, kisses meant only for private, kisses that lasted hours and kisses that were gone before they'd arrived. Kisses that said, I know you. Kisses that pleaded, Come back to me. Kisses that knew they weren't working. Or at least Harry's kisses knew they weren't working. Craig's kisses still believed. So the kissing had to stop. — David Levithan

The mere will to live was clearly no match for the pains and aggravations that punctuate the life of the average Western man. — Michel Houellebecq

I can't help but think that the way we punctuate now is the right way - that we are living in a punctuation renaissance. — Mary Norris

I keep thinking of the gifts of my own upbringing, which I once took for granted: I can read any book I choose and comprehend it. I can write a complete sentence and punctuate it correctly. If I need help, I can call on judges, attorneys, educators, ministers. I wonder what I would be like if I had grown up without such protections and supports. What cracks would have turned up in my character? — Helen Prejean

How do you end a story that's not yours? Add another sentence where there is a pause? Infiltrate the story with a comma when really there should have been a period? Punctuate with an exclamation point where a period would have sufficed? What if you kill something breathing and breathe life into something the author wanted to eliminate? How do you get inside the mind of a person who isn't there? Fill the shoes of someone who will never again fill his own? — Shaila M. Abdullah

The correct way to punctuate a sentence that states: "Of course it is none of my business, but
" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. — Robert A. Heinlein

Anyone can see that to write Uncle Tom's Cabin on the knee in the kitchen, with constant calls to cooking and other details of housework to punctuate the paragraphs, was a more difficult achievement than to write it at leisure in a quiet room. — Anna Garlin Spencer

The Democrats current crudeness is a function of their desperation, and the imminent ratification of Howard Dean, the least charming presidential candidate in recent memory, as their party chairman only serves to punctuate the problem. — Joe Klein

If I wouldn't of spent so much time shooting spit wads at my English teacher I'd know how to punctuate good thing I normally write poetry. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

Perhaps in time, Ella, the words we have lost will fade, and we will all stop summoning them by habit, only to stamp them out like unwanted toadstools when they appear. Perhaps they will eventually disappear altogether, and the accompanying halts and stammers as well: those troublesome, maddening pauses that at present invade and punctuate through caesura all manner of discourse. Trying so desperately we all are, to be ever so careful. — Mark Dunn

Humans like nothing more than to pigeonhole the events & phenomena that punctuate their lives. — China Mieville

And no one could have known if he had ever looked at her either as, without any semblance of progress in either of them, they draw slowly together as the wagon crawls terrifically toward her in its slow palpable aura of somnolence and red dust in which the steady feet of the mules move dreamlike and punctuate by the sparse jingle of harness and the limber bobbing of jackrabbit ears, the mules still neither asleep nor awake as he halts them. — William Faulkner

Stripping's bad form, these days," he said. "It's lost all meaning. People do it just to punctuate a conversation. — Bruce Sterling

Married?" she practically screeched, not sounding all that pleased, which left him feeling a little offended. "We're not getting married."
He snorted at that. "I may have let you have your naughty little way with me for the past couple of months, but that doesn't mean I'm going to allow you to keep treating me like some dirty little boy toy. If you want to live with me then I expect you to put a ring on my finger," he said, holding up his left hand and wiggling his ring finger to punctuate his words. — R.L. Mathewson

But, you say, there is very little conversation in this book. Why isn't there more dialoge? What we want in a book by this citizen is people talking; that is all he knows how to do and now he doesn't do it. The fellow is no philosopher, no savant, an incompetent zoologist, he drinks too much and cannot punctuate readily and now he has stopped writing dialogue. Some one ought to put a stop to him. He is bull crazy. — Ernest Hemingway,

Understanding and accepting the decisions you have made, good or bad, will make you bolder. Reflection helps punctuate your past and indent your future. — Farshad Asl

As for the herbal cigarettes, for the most part I don't smoke as much as the guys do. I'm usually just strutting around a bit more so I don't actually have to be inhaling it. I'm lucky because I do have scenes where the cigarettes work beautifully to punctuate certain things I'm saying. — Christina Hendricks

It seems to me that the prayers of the Bible can be distilled into one. The result is a simple, easy-to-remember, pocket-size prayer: Father, you are good. I need help. Heal me and forgive me. They need help. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Let this prayer punctuate your day. As you begin your morning, Father, you are good. As you commute to work or walk the hallways at school, I need help. As you wait in the grocery line, They need help. Keep this prayer in your pocket as you pass through the day. — Max Lucado

'Porgy and Bess' has never been thought of as a dance show, and yet it's filled with dance. It uses dance to punctuate the action, or as background, or as atmosphere; even when it's front and center, it isn't crucial. — Robert Gottlieb

She poked him in the center of his chest with two fingers to punctuate her words.
"You are an unfeeling" - poke - "traitorous" - poke - "mistrusting" - poke - "rude" - poke - "booby!"
Every poke turned him mortal, but Lord Maccon didn't seem to mind it in the least. Instead he grabbed the hand that poked him and brought it to his lips. "You put it very well, my love. — Gail Carriger

The music aids the message, it's there to punctuate and abbreviate and shape the silence. — Saul Williams

Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passage of time: roses picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest. A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark ... I hoard all these letters like treasure. One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half-mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship.
It will keep the vultures at bay. — Jean-Dominique Bauby

why count the buses? probably because they're recognizable and regular:they cut up time, they punctuate the background noise; ultimately, they're foreseeable — Georges Perec

The dying need but little, dear, - A glass of water's all, A flower's unobtrusive face To punctuate the wall, A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret, And certainly that one No color in the rainbow Perceives when you are gone. — Emily Dickinson

I still love to love my friends, but I punctuate those moments with solitude. — Stephanie Klein

When speaking aloud, you punctuate constantly - with body language.
Your listener hears commas, dashes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks as you shout, whisper, pause, wave your arms, roll your eyes, wrinkle your brow.
In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear the way you want to be heard. — Russell Baker

Of urgency I was feeling. "Tonight, Zoeybird? I can't wait a few hours until morning?" "Tonight." As if to punctuate my request through the phone, Aphrodite and I heard the chilling sound of a raven's deep, creepy, croaking — P.C. Cast

My goal is to be exactly how I am offstage - although I realize I'm supposed to punctuate it with jokes. — Andy Kindler