80 Punctuation Quotes
Following is our list of punctuation quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about punctuation marks.
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Famous Punctuation Quotes
The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning. — Lynne Truss
A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point. Thats basic spelling that every woman ought to know. — Mistinguett
The time is right to mix sentences with dirt and the sun with punctuation and rain with verbs. — Richard Brautigan
No iron can pierce the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time. — Isaac Babel
Never put a question mark where God puts a Period — Richard Petty
No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place. — Isaac Babel
Every time I write these words they become a taboo, Making sure my punctuation curve, every letter here's true, Living my life in the margin, and that metaphor was proof. — Kendrick Lamar
The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it. — Lynne Truss
I write music with an exclamation point! — Richard Wagner
So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee. — Laurie Halse Anderson
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. — Kurt Vonnegut
I'm a poet. I distrust anything that starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop because people don't think in full, clear sentences. — Antjie Krog
Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life. — Abbas Kiarostami
"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind." — Terry Pratchett
Typography is a minor technicality of civilized life. — Stanley Morison
Short Punctuation Quotes
- Ordinary speciation remains fully adequate to explain the causes and phenomenology of punctuation. — Stephen Jay Gould
- I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses. — Isaac Marion
- Argument need not be heated; it can be punctuated with courteous smiles - or sympathetic tears. — J. Sidlow Baxter
- Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking. — Lynne Truss
- Having touched Christ's feet is not an excuse for punctuation mistakes. — Fernando Pessoa
- Suicide is the punctuation mark at the end of many artistic careers — Kurt Vonnegut
- Why, if there is alphabet soup, do we not have punctuation cereal? — Mary Norris
- Many writers profess great exactness in punctuation who never yet made a point. — George D. Prentice
- Punctuation, is? fun! — Daniel Keyes
- The natural rhythm of human life is routine punctuated by orgies. — Aldous Huxley
Punctuation Marks Quotes
Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile. — Julie Burchill
Hope. It's like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It's a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it's the only thing in the world keeping me afloat. — Tahereh Mafi
In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly. — Lynne Truss
Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop. — Lynne Truss
A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo. — Kurt Vonnegut
I had a vision ... of being found on the pavement by some passerby, with a small punctuation mark ending my sentence of life. — Mary Roberts Rinehart
It (the dash ) is a comfortable punctuation mark since even the most rigorous critic can seldom claim that any particular example of it is a misuse. Its overuse is its greatest danger, and the writer who can't resist dashes may be suspected of uncoordinated thinking. — Bergen Evans
I bet when all the punctuation marks have a party, they quietly look at exclamation point's wife and think, that poor woman. — Dana Gould
If the semicolon is one of the neglected children in the family of punctuation marks these days, told to stay in its room and entertain itself, because mummy and daddy are busy, the apostrophe is the abused victim. — John Humphrys
Human beings are like timid punctuation marks sprinkled among the incomprehensible sentences of life. — Jean Giraudoux
People Writing About Punctuation
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Lynne Truss |
58 | 224 |
 Isaac Babel |
13 | 129 |
 Kurt Vonnegut |
1005 | 5935 |
 Richard Brautigan |
80 | 776 |
 Richard Petty |
22 | 218 |
 Kendrick Lamar |
140 | 18024 |
More Punctuation Quotes
Modern man is conditioned to expect instant gratification, but any success or triumph realized quickly, with only marginal effort, is necessarily shallow. Meaningful achievement takes time, hard work, persistence, patience, proper intent and self-awareness. The path to success is punctuated by failure, consolidation, and renewed effort. — Mark Twight
Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best. — Michael Johnson
My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie? — Billy Wilder
I have zero ideas how to use a comma, punctuation, or spell 82% of the English language. I used to edit videos in the back of my high school English class. — MrBeast
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do not know-as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. — Stephen Jay Gould
Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can't read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea. — Robert Rauschenberg
But phony, Hemingway was not, and poseur he was not. He did not shoot lions and leopards because he was searching for the answer to life. He shot lions and leopards because he bloody well liked to hunt and shoot, and killing was the best punctuation mark at the end of the intricate and fascinating process of hunting. — Robert Ruark
What is said determines who listens and who understands. Graphic design is a language, but graphic designers are so busy worrying about the nuances - accents, punctuation and so on - that they spend little time thinking about what the words add up to. I’m interested in using our communication skills to change the way things are. — Tibor Kalman
Everyone suffers; life is pain; and death is the final punctuation at the end of that sentence, so deal with it. I really think you can manage pain and suffering by living in fullness and being true to yourself and all those seemingly vapid platitudes. — Sufjan Stevens
Now everybody's bloggin'. I heard somebody say, "Blogging is just graffiti with punctuation." Everyone's an authority so there's nobody in power, 'cause everyone thinks they're in power. — Ice T
Music is life. Music defines peoples' experience on this planet. Name one time in your life that wasn't punctuated by the music you listened to at the time. When people are down, they listen to music that commiserates that emotion. When people are amped up, they listen to more upbeat, loud songs. — Mark Hoppus
We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless. — Russell Brand
The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid. — Edgar Allan Poe
Maximum sentence length: seventeen words. Minimum:one No semicolons. Semicolons indicate relationships that only idiots need defined by punctuation. Besides, they are ugly. Make sure each sentence is at least four words longer or shorter than the one before it. — Richard Hugo
Dark furrow lines grid the snow, punctuated by orange abacus beads of pumpkins - now the crows own the field. — John J. Geddes
You know, you'd hide behind a Public Enemy or Ice Cube, or Bruce Springsteen, or U2, because they spoke for you. But now everybody's bloggin'. I heard somebody say, "Blogging is just graffiti with punctuation." Everyone's an authority so there's nobody in power, 'cause everyone thinks they're in power. — Ice T
The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Writers have no real area of expertise. They are merely generalists with a highly inflamed sense of punctuation. — Lorrie Moore
Punctuation has its own philosophy, just as style does, although not as language does. Style is a good understanding of language, punctuation is a good understanding of style. — George Sand
Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences. — Terry Pratchett
Mr. Speaker. I said the honorable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honorable member may place the punctuation where he pleases. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan
In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear you the way you want to be heard. — Russell Baker
Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation. — Lynne Truss
The key to a successful relationship isn’t just in the words, it’s in the choice of punctuation. When you’re in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations. — David Levithan
In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel. — Werner Herzog
The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning. — Lynne Truss
Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings. — George Will
As someone who sends texts messages more or less non-stop, I enjoy one particular aspect of texting more than anything else: that it is possible to sit in a crowded railway carriage laboriously spelling out quite long words in full, and using an enormous amount of punctuation, without anyone being aware of how outrageously subversive I am being. — Lynne Truss
They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff. — Isaac Bashevis Singer
To remove warfare from a spiritual life is to render it unspiritual. Life in the spirit is a suffering way, filled with watching and laboring, burdened by weariness and trial, punctuated by heartbreak and conflict. It is a life utterly outpoured for the kingdom of God and lived in complete disregard for one's personal happiness. — Watchman Nee
In Conclusion
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