Following is our list of the most famous semicolon quotations and slogans. We've compiled this selection of inspirational semicolon quotes. Hopefully, these semicolon quotes will keep you motivated not only during hard times but to expand your semicolon knowledge!
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
The time is right to mix sentences with dirt and the sun with punctuation and rain with verbs. — Richard Brautigan
Never put a question mark where God puts a Period — Richard Petty
"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind." — Terry Pratchett
Code never lies, comments sometimes do. — Ron Jeffries
A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point. Thats basic spelling that every woman ought to know. — Mistinguett
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
No iron can pierce the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time. — Isaac Babel
So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee. — Laurie Halse Anderson
The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it. — Lynne Truss
Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once. — John Coltrane
I write music with an exclamation point! — Richard Wagner
A good simile,--as concise as a king's declaration of love. — Laurence Sterne
No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place. — Isaac Babel
The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning. — Lynne Truss
Short Semicolon Quotes
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. — Alan Perlis
I love the semicolon; it's unnecessary, but graceful and sophisticated. — Brian P. Cleary
I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow. — Abraham Lincoln
Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses. — George Eliot
Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath. — Lewis Thomas
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
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
She had six months at most left to live. She had cancer, she hissed. A filthy growth eating her insides away. There was an operation, she'd been told. They took half your stomach out and fitted you up with a plastic bag. Better a semicolon than a full stop, some might say. — Helen Hodgman
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
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
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
A comma . . . catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling, and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table. — Pico Iyer
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
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
I didn't have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let's say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing! — Henry Miller
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
You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life. — George Bernard Shaw
It should come as no surprise that writers take an interest in punctuation. I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th-century writer were, "I should have used fewer semicolons" - and although I have spent months fruitlessly trying to track down the chap responsible, I believe it none the less. If it turns out that no one actually did say this on their deathbed, I shall certainly save it up for my own. — Lynne Truss
I hope that my ideas attract a lively dialogue, even if my sentences are simple. Simple sentences have always served me well. And I don't use semicolons. It's hard to read anyway, especially for high school kids. Also, I avoid irony, too. I don't like people saying one thing and meaning the other. — Kurt Vonnegut
To one who has enjoyed the full life of any scene, of any hour, what thoughts can be recorded about it seem like the commas and semicolons in the paragraph-mere stops. — Margaret Fuller
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
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
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 realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. — Kurt Vonnegut
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
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
In Conclusion
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Citation
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