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1 " If you start most of your sentences with 'Why Can't', 'Why Not', or 'What if', you'll build a stronger imagination. "
2 " Grace, if you have used an iron within the last six months, I will eat that fork," Ms. Chancellor says." Which one?" I try to tease. " You've got a lot of forks to choose from." " From which to choose, Grace. Do not end your sentences in prepositions, dear." " Of course, I totally see what you're getting at. I mean, at what you're getting. "
3 " Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra—they’ll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even. I am one of those. My writing desk is covered in open novels. I read lines to swim in a certain sensibility, to strike a particular note, to encourage rigour when I’m too sentimental, to bring verbal ease when I’m syntactically uptight. I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka, as roughage. If your aesthetic has become so refined it is stopping you from placing a single black mark on white paper, stop worrying so much about what Nabokov would say; pick up Dostoyevsky, patron saint of substance over style. "
― Zadie Smith , Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays
4 " [ELIZA]You and your words flooded my senses, your sentences left me defenseless. You built me palaces out of paragraphs, you built cathedrals. "
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5 " I think the written word is probably the best medium of communication because you have time to reflect, you have time to choose your words, to get your sentences exactly right. Whereas when you're being interviewed, say, you have to talk on the fly, you have to improvise, you can change sentences around, and they're not exactly right. "
6 " I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage. "
