Syntax Quotes

49 quotes by 46 authors

Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People… — Edwin H Friedman
Poetry springs directly from our primal need and capacity for communication[Poetry] mobilizes such a concentration of devices, such an intensification of language via rhythm, syntax,… — Sven Birkerts
Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down… — Raymond Chandler
Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead… — Dorothy L. Sayers
It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results… — John Searle
Composing computer programs to solve scientific problems is like writing poetry. You must choose every word with care and link it with the other words… — James Lovelock
Don't you hate code that's not properly indented? Making it [indenting] part of the syntax guarantees that all code is properly indented. — Guido van Rossum
I see the origin of the irresistible attraction of metaphor and analogy, the explanation of our strange and permanent need to find similarities in things.… — Roger Caillois
It sometimes happens to me while writing, that I seek a word; mischievous as it is it appears in English, it appears in Arabic, but… — Sami Michael
Prose is not necessarily good because it obeys the rules of syntax, but it is fairly certain to be bad if it ignores them. — Wilson Follett
What makes sense is not law, syntax, rules or structure — Aaron Betsky
It was the single forgiving phrase in the syntax of weaponry I had strapped about me. The rest were unequivocal sentences of death. — Richard K. Morgan
A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write… — Alice Steinbach
Bad writing is more than a matter of (expletive deleted) syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories… — Stephen King
I love that moment in writing when language falls short. There is something more there. A larger body. Even by the failure of words I… — Susan Griffin
The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax — Thomas Paine
Amid chaos of images, we value coherence. We believe in the printed word. And we believe in clarity. And we believe in immaculate syntax. And… — William Shawn
And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading.… — Jean M. Auel
A candidate for office can have no greater advantage than muddled syntax; no greater liability than a command of language. — Marya Mannes
Yiddish has a down-to-earth quality that makes it remote from high-flown rhetoric, and it has a catch-as-catch-can charm derived from its stunning variety-of syntax, spelling,… — Israel Shenker

Who Wrote These Syntax Quotes

46 authors contributed a total of 49 Syntax Quotes, led by these top contributors: