And Diction Quotes

The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story. ~ Donna Tartt

…[A] copyeditor must read the document letter by letter, word by word, with excruciating care and attentiveness. In many ways, being a copyeditor is like sitting for an English exam that never ends: At any moment, your knowledge of spelling, grammar, punctuation, usage, syntax, and diction is being tested. ~ Amy Einsohn

This is form and content and diction and tone and imagination all looking up at the exact same moment: When Molly Tanzer claps once at the front of the classroom. ~ Stephen Graham Jones

Being self-owned is a state of mind. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Jyn shrugged, unable to feign a senator's diction any longer. "Rebellions are built on hope." "There ~ Alexander Freed

No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame. ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

In order to be heard by the oppressing class, one must speak as a member of it. Not only the language, but the diction. The accusation of tyranny, however well-founded in fact, is dismissed unless it is delivered in the manner that power recognizes as powerful. ~ James S.A. Corey

Enunciation, diction, all that stuff. None of that is in my personality. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

Actually, I'm addicted to science fiction. Let me make my diction clear - I love sci-fi. ~ John Rhys-Davies

Fact is richer than diction. ~ J.L. Austin

Vocabulary for aggravation is large. Vocabulary for transcendence is elusive. ~ Jennifer Senior

Our choice of words often reveal the depth of our knowledge … or ignorance … or that of our desire to be deemed knowledgeable. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Diction is not memorizing vocabulary, not memorizing word lists, not overusing the thesaurus, not replacing all the short words with long ones. ~ Jeff Anderson

I'm very anxious not to fall into archaism or 'literary' diction. I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive. ~ James Agee

This dark diction has become America's addiction. ~ Kanye West

For whatever reason, thus far it's been important to me not to write that kind of collection. Which means that I've spent months playing tic-tac-notecard, trying to get the stories in an order whereby stories that are similar in any given way (diction, narrative stance, setting, plot) are separated by others that aren't. ~ Roy Kesey

An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego. ~ Alec Guinness

When I was writing 'You Suck,' in 2006, I constructed the diction of the book's narrator, perky Goth girl Abby Normal, from what I read on Goth blog sites. ~ Christopher Moore

It was the critic Alexander who put me on my guard against unnecessary fault-finding. People should not be sharply corrected for bad grammar, provincialisms, or mispronunciation; it is better to suggest the proper expression by tactfully introducing it oneself in, say, one's reply to a question or one's acquiescence in their sentiments, or into a friendly discussion of the topic itself (not of the diction), or by some other suitable form of reminder. ~ Anonymous

What art does is give us the refinement, all the shades of meaning, of emoting, that we don't have language for. What fascinates me about that is we're talking about an art form in which your medium is language. It's almost a paradox that you're seeing. I want to give you emotion, that if I just relied on diction, I wouldn't have language for it. ~ Stuart Dybek

In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semi-relaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand, accompaniment by an etude or a cacophony of voices can become as significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as a touchstone for a diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds. ~ Walter Benjamin