“The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it.”
Source: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
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Lynne Truss7
British writer 1955Related quotes
“Personally, I quite like that. Such stupid gallantry.
Yes. I like that a lot.”
Markus Zusak book The Book Thief
Source: The Book Thief
“I don’t like to share my personal life… it wouldn’t be personal if I shared it.”
George Clooney (1961) American actor, filmmaker, and activist
Steve Turner (1949) British writer
Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 143
John Stuart Mill book Considerations on Representative Government
In a Parliamentary debate with the Conservative MP, John Pakington (May 31, 1866). Hansard, vol 183, col 1592. Pakington was referring to Footnote 3 to Chapter 7 of Mill's "Considerations on Representative Government".
Misquoted as "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." in "Life of John Stuart Mill" (1889) by W. L. Courtney, p. 147.
This seems to have become paraphrased as "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." which was a variant published in Quotations for Our Time (1978), edited by Laurence J. Peter.
“Keep your stupid rules
I don't know how to use it
Keep your bad news
I won't read itǃ”
Mara Balls (1983) Finnish musician
“It is difficult to see the person who admires us as stupid.”
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer
Es ist schwer den, der uns bewundert, für einen Dummkopf zu halten.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 72.
“He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.”
Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye
Source: The Long Goodbye
Sherilyn Fenn (1965) American actress
Sherilyn Fenn, quoted in "Fenn Fatale", by Mike Bygrave. Sky Magazine (UK). July 1992. p. 6-10.
William Golding (1911–1993) British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate
Interview in regard to his work Rites of Passage, quoted in The Dreams of William Golden, BBC Arena (2012)