Stanley Fish: Wording

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

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

“No word floats without an anchoring connection within an overall structure.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 2, Why You Don't Find The Answer In Strunk And White, p. 17

“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

“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

“Before the words slide into their slots, they are just discrete items, pointing everywhere and nowhere.”

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 1, Why Sentences?, p. 2