#sentence

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

#english-language #grammar #humor #lynne-truss #punctuation

As he dropped the last grisly fragment of the dismembered and mutilated body into the small vat of nitric acid that was to devour every trace of the horrid evidence which might easily send him to the gallows, the man sank weakly into a chair and throwing his body forward upon his great, teak desk buried his face in his arms, breaking into dry, moaning sobs. ↗

— Edgar Rice Burroughs

#opening-lines #men

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#human-nature #opening-lines #nature

I write about it in the book and, you know, explain that. But that was the technicality that actually got my sentence reduced - that Alan Dershowitz used to have my sentence - it came down eventually to eight years. ↗

— Jim Bakker

#actually #alan #book #came #down

All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. ↗

— Charles A. Beard

#dark #destroy #enough #exceedingly #fertilizes

Something's going to happen that's going to make us all pay attention at the type of sentences some people are serving and the conditions in which they are served. ↗

— Christopher Darden

#conditions #going #happen #make #pay

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like. ↗

— Don DeLillo

#even #how #i #just #juxtaposition

There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live. ↗

— Don DeLillo

#force #live #moral #out #right

Detachment produces a peculiar state of mind. Maybe that's the worst sentence of all, to be deprived of feeling what a human being ought to be entitled to feel. ↗

— James Dickey

#deprived #detachment #entitled #feel #feeling

I wish I could undo what I did at Enron but I can't. I understand that I deserve punishment. Your honor, I accept the prison sentence that you are about to impose and will serve it without bitterness. ↗

— Andrew Fastow

#accept #bitterness #could #deserve #did