Stanley Fish: Sentencing

Stanley Fish is American academic. Explore interesting quotes on sentencing.

Stanley Fish: 36 quotes0 likes

“The word "essay" means to try out, test, probe. In the essay style, successive clauses and sentences are not produced by an overarching logic, but by association; the impression that prose gives is that it can go anywhere in a manner wholly unpredictable.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 6, The Additive Style, p. 62

“Know what makes a sentence more than a random list, practice constructing sentences and explaining what you have done, and you will know how to make sentences forever and you will know too when what you are writing doesn't make the grade because it has degenerated into a mere pile of discrete items.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 3, It's Not The Thought That Counts, p. 33

“People write or speak sentences in order to produce an effect, and the success of a sentence is measured by the degree to which the desired effect has been achieved.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 4, What Is A Good Sentence?, p. 37

“They are their own monuments, as is this quietly thrilling sentence.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 9, Last Sentences, p. 130

“What we know of the world comes to us through words, or, to look at it from the other direction, when we write a sentence, we create a world, which is not the world, but the world as is appears within a dimension of assessment.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 4, What Is A Good Sentence?, p. 39

“Sentence writers are not copyists; they are selectors.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 4, What Is A Good Sentence?, p. 38

“Sentences can save us. Who could ask for anything more?”

Epilogue, p. 160
How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011)

“Just as you can practice three - word sentences or sentences that travel across time zones, so can you practice writing sentences that breathe unshakable conviction.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 5, The Subordinate Style, p. 48

“The category of first sentence makes sense only if it is looking forward to the development of thematic concerns it perhaps only dimly foreshadows.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 8, First Sentences, p. 99