Sentence And Phrase Quotes & Sayings

Every sentence, every phrase, every word has to fight for its life. — Crawford Kilian

Before the scene, before the paragraph, even before the sentence, comes the word. Individual words and phrases are the building blocks of fiction, the genes that generate everything else. Use the right words, and your fiction can blossom. The French have a phrase for it - le mot juste - the exact right word in the exact right position. — Nancy Kress

To a literate reader, a crisp sentence, an arresting metaphor, a witty aside, an elegant turn of phrase are among life's greatest pleasures. And — Steven Pinker

Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don't like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I feel that I'm coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that wont the game. — William Zinsser

He wasn't quite sure when he made it, somewhere between turning on the shower and stepping in, perhaps, or pouring the milk and adding the cereal, or maybe a dozen tiny decisions had added up like letters until they finally made a word, a phrase, a sentence. — Victoria Schwab

These two were busy explaining to the harassed man that the phrase "too much Mozart" was, given any reasonable definition of those three words, an inherently self-contradictory expression, and that any sentence which contained such a phrase would be thereby rendered meaningless and could not, consequently, be advanced as part of an argument in favor of any given program-scheduling strategy. — Douglas Adams

Vonnegut along with critically acclaimed novelists like Lawrence Durrell and Iris Murdoch, Scholes explained that Vonnegut uses the rhetorical potential of the short sentence and short paragraph better than anyone now writing, often getting a rich comic or dramatic effect by isolating a single sentence in a separate paragraph or excerpting a phrase from context for a bizarre chapter-heading. The apparent simplicity and ordinariness of his writing mask its efficient power ... — Kurt Vonnegut

It stated that Rome tolerates, in her relation with the Russian Uniats, "strange heresies and even bearded and wedded clergy."
In that one extraordinary phrase, what formless monster begins to take form in their visions? In those eight words it is not too much to say that every term is startling in its inconsequence. As somebody tumbling down the stairs bumps upon every step, the writer comes a crash upon every word. The word "strange" is strange enough. The word "heresy" is stranger. Perhaps at first sight the word "bearded," with its joyous reminiscences of the game of Beaver, may appear the most funny. "Wedded" is also funny. Even the "and" between bearded and wedded is funny. But by far the funniest and most fantastic thing in all that fantastic sentence is the word "even. — G.K. Chesterton

Although I don't use it nearly so much anymore, I've decided, five years down the line, that Mr. Treadstone's verdict on 'kind of' was kind of unjust. Obviously, this phrase can be redundant or reductive, or just plain stupid in some sentences, but not in all sentences. I wouldn't, for example, use a sentence like 'Antarctica is kind of cold', or 'Hitler was kind of evil'. But sometimes, things aren't black and white. And sometimes 'kind of' expresses this better than any other phrase. For example, when I tell you that my mother was kind of peculiar, I can think of no better way of putting this. — Gavin Extence

It's strange how a word, a phrase, a sentence, can feel like a blow to the head. — Veronica Roth

Style, not least, adds beauty to the world. To a literate reader, a crisp sentence, an arresting metaphor, a witty aside, an elegant turn of phrase are among life's greatest pleasures. — Steven Pinker

Use 'breath prayers' throughout the day, as many Christians have done for centuries. You choose a brief sentence or a simple phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in one breath. — Rick Warren

If I see a phrase that strikes me as ugly, I'll delete it. Or, if I find a way to say something a bit more freshly than it was expressed originally, I'll do it. Ultimately, you want to try to leave behind the best possible paragraph or sentence. — Tim O'Brien

This rule is difficult to apply; it is frequently hard to decide whether a single word, such as however, or a brief phrase, is or is not parenthetic. If the interruption to the flow of the sentence is but slight, the writer may safely omit the commas. But whether the interruption be slight or considerable, he must never omit one comma and leave the other. Such punctuation as — William Strunk Jr.

And it suggests this truth about the place where aesthetic form meets the human mind. For even if we were to find ourselves homeless, in a strange land, with nothing of ourselves left-say we lost everything-we'd still have another kind of home, in aesthetic form itself, in the familiarity, the unchanging assurance that a known rhythm, a recognised line, the familiar shape of a story, a tune, a line or phrase or sentence gives us every time, even long after we've forgotten we even know it. — Ali Smith

the difficulty of a sentence depends not just on its word count but on its geometry. Good writers often use very long sentences, and they garnish them with words that are, strictly speaking, needless. But they get away with it by arranging the words so that a reader can absorb them a phrase at a time, each phrase conveying a chunk of conceptual structure. — Steven Pinker

[The Head of Radio Three] had been ensnared by the Music Director of the college and a Professor of Philosophy. These two were busy explaining to the harassed man that the phrase "too much Mozart" was, given any reasonable definition of those three words, an inherently self-contradictory expression, and that any sentence which contained such a phrase would be thereby rendered meaningless and could not, consequently, be advanced as part of an argument in favour of any given programme-scheduling strategy. — Douglas Adams

I found I'm quite happy working on a sentence for an hour or more, searching for the right phrase, the right word. I compare it to the work of a stone cutter - chipping away at the raw material until it's just right, or as right as you can get it. — Harriet Doerr

You said no, though," he says, slightly muffled. "When I asked you out. That one time."

"Wait, what?"

"That time at work? I asked you to the movies, and you said you would invite Vera?"

I pull back a bit. "That wasn't - you weren't asking me out. You said I could come, too, if I wanted. That's not asking someone out."

"It was to me," he says, sheepish, and I want to poke him, but I also kind of want to hug him forever.

"Next time you want to ask someone out, maybe be less subtle. Maybe try to use the word date or together. Maybe phrase it as an actual question, you know, get some upward inflection going at the end of the sentence?"

He just looks at me, a little bit like he wants to poke me, but maybe also hug me forever. Instead he just kisses me, and it's a long time before we break apart again. — Emma Mills

I always stood out as being different...and unwilling to accept the phrase 'I am a girl' as an ending to any type of sentence that started with 'I can't because'. — Scott Hildreth

If there is "better", then there is a "best". If there is "half", then there is a "complete". Far more than being a "better half", you can be a "best complete"; like a word/phrase that beautifies and gives meaning to a sentence when it is added. — Olaotan Fawehinmi

I think the rule of thumb should be this: if you preface a sentence about a friend with the phrase, 'I love X, but ... ' more than once in any conversation, you should stop hanging out with them. — Sloane Crosley

As she spoke, Isabel found herself thinking of the power of words. A single word, a phrase, a sentence or two could have such extraordinary power; could end a world, break a heart or, as in this case, consign another to moral purdah. — Alexander McCall Smith

There seems little or no hope for the adult writer who produces sentences like these: "Her cheeks were thick and smooth and held a healthy natural red color. The heavy lines under them, her jowls, extended to the intersection of her lips and gave her a thick-lipped frown most of the time." The phrase "Her cheeks were thick and smooth" is normal English, but "[Her cheeks] held a healthy natural red color" is elevated, pseudo-poetic. The word "held" faintly hints at personification of "cheeks," and "healthy natural red color" is clunky, stilted, slightly bookish. The second sentence contains similar mistakes. The diction level of "extended to the intersection of her lips" is high and formal, in ferocious conflict with the end of the sentence, which plunges to the colloquial "most of the time. — John Gardner

A perception of empire is found in an early Christian acrostic. An acrostic is a word made up of the first letters of each word in a phrase or sentence. In this case, the phrase is an early Christian saying in Latin: radix omnium malorum avaritia. Radix means "root," omnium means "all," malorum means "evil," and avaritia means "avarice" (or "greed"). Putting it together, it says, "Avarice (or greed) is the root of all evil." And the first letters of each word produce Roma, the Latin spelling of Rome. It makes a striking point: Roma - empire - is the embodiment of avarice, the incarnation of greed. That's what empire is about. The embodiment of greed in domination systems is the root of all evil. — Marcus J. Borg

I'll talk to my mother," she promised. "If I'm sufficiently
annoying, I'm sure I can get the engagement period
cut in half."
"It makes me wonder," he said. "As your future husband,
should I be concerned by your use of the phrase if
I'm sufficiently annoying?"
"Not if you accede to all of my wishes."
"A sentence that concerns me even more," he murmured.
She did nothing but smile. — Julia Quinn

Barthes found the exit to this merry-go-round by reminding himself that "it is language which is assertive, not he." It is absurd, Barthes says, to try to flee from language's assertive nature by "add[ing] to each sentence some little phrase of uncertainty, — Maggie Nelson

Certain individual words do possess more pitch, more radiance, more shazam! than others, but it's the way words are juxtaposed with other words in a phrase or sentence that can create magic. Perhaps literally. — Tom Robbins

It was strange too that he found an arid pleasure in following up to the end the rigid lines of the doctrines of the church and penetrating into obscure silences only to hear and feel the more deeply his own condemnation. The sentence of saint James which says that he who offends against one commandment becomes guilty of all, had seemed to him first a swollen phrase until he had begun to grope in the darkness of his own state. From the evil seed of lust all other deadly sins had sprung forth: pride in himself and contempt of others, covetousness In using money for the purchase of unlawful pleasures, envy of those whose vices he could not reach to and calumnious murmuring against the pious, gluttonous enjoyment of food, the dull glowering anger amid which he brooded upon his longing, the swamp of spiritual and bodily sloth in which his whole being had sunk. — James Joyce

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, every poem an epitaph. — T. S. Eliot

Every word, every phrase, wants to be in a sentence, when it is written for you. — M.F. Moonzajer

A writer's high doesn't come from thinking about the end result, only of the moment, one word, one sentence, one phrase at a time. — C.J. Heck

Thoughts are ideas scattered in your head. When written forms a sentence. When rhymed, it forms a phrase and singing it blooms a beautiful poem. — Ymatruz

If you listen to the urban speech patterns in India you'll find it's quite characteristic that a sentence will begin in one language, go through a second language and end in a third. It's the very playful, very natural result of juggling languages. You are always reaching for the most appropriate phrase. — Salman Rushdie

The breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not so conspicuous, in the handling of prepositions, those modest little connectives that hold the parts of a phrase or a sentence together. They are the joints of any language, what make it, literally, articulate. — Mary McCarthy

Writer's Rhyme

Word by word
line by line,
I'm gonna make
this writing fine.

I'll reread
'til I know
that each sentence
says it so.

Check the grammar
and the meaning;
be the critic;
do the screening.

Dictionary's
not for show;
Helps me get
those words to flow.

Watch the diet;
hem it in.
Do not fear
to make it thin.

Simple is
a goal to praise;
Let's untie
that wordy phrase.

Every word
let's be sure
follows the last
with meaning pure.

"Won't be easy,"
so 'tis said,
but effort will
put me ahead.

Word by word
line by line,
I'm gonnna make
this writing fine,

even though
it takes some time,
I'm gonna make this writing fine;

I'm gonna make
this writing fine. — Peter Siviglia

The minute a phrase, becomes current, it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The managing editor shared Bernstein's fondness for doping things out on the basis of sketchy information. At the same time, he was cautious about what eventually went into print. On more than one occasion, he told Bernstein and Woodward to consider delaying a story or, if necessary, to pull it at the last minute if they had any doubts. 'I don't care if it's a word, a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, a whole story or an entire series of stories,' he said. 'When in doubt, leave it out.'
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

For every romantic possiblity, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and opposite sentence, phrase, or word capable of extinguishing it. — Malcolm Gladwell

Verres had Gavius thrown into prison, tortured and crucified, on the specious grounds that he was a spy for Spartacus. Roman citizenship should have protected him from this degrading punishment. So, as he was flogged, the poor man repeatedly cried out, 'Civis Romanus sum' ('I am a Roman citizen'), but to no avail. Presumably, when they chose to repeat this phrase, both Palmerston and Kennedy (see p. 137) must have forgotten that its most famous ancient use was as the unsuccessful plea of an innocent victim under a sentence of death imposed by a rogue Roman governor. — Mary Beard

Creation, whether it's writing, painting or whatever, is essentially despotic and autocratic in nature, because it's the work of one mind and one mind alone which has absolute power of life or death over this sentence, or that phrase or whatever it is. It brooks no interference and can only work if it's the one mind doing it. Reading, on the other hand, interpretation, is inherently, intrinsically democratic, because it is fundamentally a process of negotiation between the mind and the text, between the expectations you bring to it and the satisfactions and disappointments you take away from it. — Philip Pullman