Words matter. These are the best Syntax Quotes from famous people such as Sandra Cisneros, Ali Smith, Tina Brown, Anne Carson, Bram Cohen, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I thought that strange syntax was the language of story books. I didn’t realize those were poor translations… English from Edwardian times.
The rhythmical unit of the syllable is at the back of all of it – the word, the phrase, the sentence, the syntax, the paragraph, and the way the heart moves when you read it.
Obama’s gift for delivering set-piece oratorical tours de force had special resonance to Americans fed up with a president who could hardly string two words together without a collision of syntax and whose idea of clever was the single entendre.
We’re talking about the struggle to drag a thought over from the mush of the unconscious into some kind of grammar, syntax, human sense; every attempt means starting over with language. starting over with accuracy.
My favorite language for maintainability is Python. It has simple, clean syntax, object encapsulation, good library support, and optional named parameters.
When you translate poetry in particular, you’re obliged to look at how the writer with whom you’re working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax and the sentence.
I like having a paperback original. And until literature catches up with the culture – the violence, language, syntax, compression, concision, complexity and diversity that the Internet offers – books still make sense.
Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.
Learning the Italian was tough. I tried to really come at from a purist perspective, really learn the grammar, syntax and conjugations.
Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.
The pull between sound and syntax creates a kind of musical tension in the language that interests me.
Tone is somewhat totalising in that, once I locate it, it tells me what kind of syntax to use, what word choices to make, how much white space to leave on the page, what sentence length, what the rhythmic patterning will be. If I can’t find the tone, I sometimes try narrating through the point of view of someone else.
I think there is no future whatsoever in 3D. It does nothing to the grammar and syntax or vocabulary of cinema. And you get fed up with it in exactly 3 minutes.
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 their weak minds.
I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.
I did an audiobook for ‘Rough Crossings,’ which I thought was one of the best books I had published. But it was an absolute embarrassment to read it. All these horrible mucked-up bits of syntax, over-the-top adjectives. I found myself editing it while reading. Alert listeners will notice the difference.
A novelist can never be his own reader, except when he is ridding his manuscript of syntax errors, repetitions, or the occasional superfluous paragraph.
