A Quote by Lynne Truss

What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

Lynne Truss

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About Anxious Being Contemporary Dash End End Of The World Fret Instead Supporters Tendency Thus Use World Writers

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Lynne Truss
English - Novelist
Born: May 31, 1955

I don't even know how to use a semicolon to this day; I use a comma every time. And you know what? If I email somebody and they get upset about me using a comma instead of a semicolon, that's not a person I want to work with anyway. And that's how you weed people out of your life.

Hannibal Buress

The dash helps to indicate that the two thoughts are intimately related, and it's less stodgy than a semicolon, which would have performed the same function (and who talks in semicolons?).

Bill Walsh

It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period. The period tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer.

Lewis Thomas

I can't read my poem "Distracted by an Ergonomic Bicycle" without thinking of Seattle, where the events of the poem took place, and I can't read "In Defense of the Semicolon" without thinking of Toronto - but why should that matter to anyone else? If another reader imagines "In Defense of the Semicolon" taking place in New Orleans, great.

James Arthur

If a period is a stop sign, then what kind of traffic flow is created by other marks? The comma is a speed bump; the semicolon is what a driver education teacher calls a “rolling stop”; the parenthetical expression is a detour; the colon is a flashing yellow light that announces something important up ahead; the dash is a tree branch in the road.

Roy Peter Clark

The medals no-one will ever wear should be the ones that reflect the most. It's not an ending, it's not a period at the end of their lives, it's a semicolon. The story will continue to be told.

Jim Sheeler

How hideous is the semicolon.

Samuel Beckett

Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.

Alan Perlis

I love the semicolon; it's unnecessary, but graceful and sophisticated.

Brian P. Cleary

I'm pretty sure when I need a comma; I'm not so sure about a semicolon.

Keith Hernandez

I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.

Abraham Lincoln

I use a whole lot of half-assed semicolons; there was one of them just now; that was a semicolon after 'semicolons,' and another one after 'now.

Ursula K. Le Guin

I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon.

Truman Capote

Oceans of emotion can be transmitted through a text message, an emoji sequence, and a winking semicolon, but humans are hardwired to respond to visuals.

Jenna Wortham

Semicolons . . . signal, rather than shout, a relationship. . . . A semicolon is a compliment from the writer to the reader. It says: "I don't have to draw you a picture; a hint will do."

George Will

God is not an exclamation point. He is, at his best, a semicolon, connecting people, and generating what Aldous Huxley called “human grace.” Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of this.

Eric Weiner

A Quote by Lynne Truss

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