A Quote by Raymond Chandler

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.

Raymond Chandler

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Damn God Infinitive Split Stays

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Raymond Chandler
American - Novelist
July 23, 1888 - March 26, 1959

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 patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.

Raymond Chandler

It is indeed acceptable practice to sometimes split an infinitive. If infinitive-splitting makes available just the shade of meaning you desire or if avoiding the separation creates a confusing ambiguity or patent artificiality, you are entitled to happily go ahead and split!

Richard Lederer

English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.

Bill Bryson

There's a split in the US about how this [split] will be resolved. The main point to look at is the split within the Republican Party. The Republican establishment, and Wall Street, and the bankers, and the corporate executives and so on, they don't want this. They don't want it at all. It's the part of the base that is mobilized that wants it.

Noam Chomsky

To boldly split infinitives that no man had split before.

Douglas Adams

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged.

Douglas Adams

You can split atoms, but you can't split true love.

Steve Fowler

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

Sonia Sotomayor

There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to split an infinitive, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.

Bill Bryson

Nothing is as dangerous in architecture as dealing with separated problems. If we split life into separated problems we split the possibilities to make good building art.

Alvar Aalto

My parents were kids when I was born. My mother was 16. My father was 17, and they got married in high school. And they split a few years later. When they split was when all that was happening also, and he - they were just coming into themselves. But they remained friends.

Mahershala Ali

The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit; it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds.

Henry David Thoreau

President Donald J Trump and the U.S. media appear now to be split by deep doctrinal differences - of the constitutional crisis kind. But, virtually up until the split, Trump and the media were as one - a perfect symbiosis.

Michael Wolff

No one should think he can quickly dispose of questions posed here offhandedly. It was precisely because writers were in the habit during the time of the Reformation of theologizing with a hammer that the split in the Church became irreparable. And to work at overcoming this split means much effort. Only the patient need apply.

Hans Urs von Balthasar

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

When you expect something, when you aim at something, right there you dilute your energy; you split your energy, you split your attention and it becomes more than the place of yin and yang. You do not only divide, but you create the problem.

Taizan Maezumi

A Quote by Raymond Chandler

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