Passive Voice Quotes

Some of the worst writing around suffers from inert verbs and the unintended use of the passive voice. Yet the passive voice remains an important arrow in the rhetorical quiver. After all, it exists for a reason. ~ Constance Hale

Never use the passive voice. Do not say, 'It will get done.' Say, 'I'll do it,' and then stick to a solid, unwavering deadline ~ Gina Barreca

You were coshed with a fireplace poker," Mrs. Seaton said, bending over him to sift through the hair above his nape. "These wounds will require careful cleaning." She wadded up his shirt and folded it to hold against the scalp wound. "Passive voice," the earl said through clenched teeth, "will not protect you, Mrs. Seaton, since you did the coshing. Jesus and the apostles, that hurts." Her hand came up to hold his forehead even as she continued to press the linen of his ruined shirt against the bleeding wound. "The bleeding is slowing down," she said, "and the wounds on your back are not as messy." "Happily for me," her patient muttered. ~ Grace Burrowes

Two pages of the passive voice - just about any business document ever written, in other words, not to mention reams of bad fiction - make me want to scream. It's weak, it's circuitous, and it's frequently tortuous, as well. How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. Oh, man - who farted, right? A simpler way to express this idea - sweeter and more forceful, as well - might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it. I'm not in love with this because it uses with twice in four words, but at least we're out of that awful passive voice. ~ Stephen King

The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding. ~ Benjamin Lee Whorf

I use "perpetrated" because it's the kind of word that passive-voice writers are fond of. They prefer long words of Latin origin to short Anglo-Saxon words - which compounds their trouble and makes their sentences still more glutinous. Short is better than long. Of the 701 words in ~ William Zinsser

Using the passive voice is always very helpful. Mind you, a lot of that propaganda English emanates from here. The British establishment has always used the passive voice. It's been a weapon of discourse so those who committed terrible acts in the old empire could not be identified. ~ John Pilger

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. ~ George Orwell

Perhaps because I have spent hours sermonizing to students about the sins of the passive voice - how it can obfuscate meaning, deaden vitality, and abandon the task of assigning agency or responsibility - I find the grammar of justice maddening. It's always "rendered," "served," or "done." It always swoops down from on high - from God, from the state - like a bolt of lightning, a flaming sword come to separate the righteous from the wicked in Earth's final hour. It is not, apparently, something we can give to one other, something we can make happen, something we can create together down here in the muck. The problem may also lie in the word itself, as for millennia "justice" has meant both "retribution" and "equality," as if a gaping chasm did not separate the two.

If you really want to know what justice is, don't only ask questions and then score off anyone who answers, and refute him, roars Thrasymachus to Socrates in The Republic. You know very well that it is much easier to ask questions than to answer them. Give an answer yourself and tell us what you say justice is. When justice is done, writes Anne Carson, the world drops away. This does not seem to me a happy thought. I am not yet sure I want the world to drop away. ~ Maggie Nelson

...ugly interlopers threaten to choke off your story, depriving it of much-needed nutrition, sunlight and water. Identify and cut those weeds – the life-sucking adverbs, the shade-killing descriptions that don't move the story forward, the crowding passive voice sentences. ~ Rob Bignell

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice - that is, until we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say, "I lost it. ~ Sydney J. Harris

Some of the farm's work reached a level of granularity that stunned Lyudmilla. Two trolls would go on the comments sections of small' provincial newspapers and start chatting about the street they lived in, the weather, then caually recommend a piece about the nefarious West attacking Russia.

No one who worked at the farm described themselves as trolls. Instead, they talked about their work in the passive voice ('a piece was written', 'a comment was made'). Most treated the farm as if it was just another job, doing the minimum required and then clocking off. Many of them seemed pleasant enough young people, with open, pretty faces, and yet they didn't blink when asked to smear, degrade, insult and humiliate their victims. The ease with which victims were attacked, the scale at which the farm operated, it all stunned Lyudmilla. ~ Peter Pomerantsev

Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation. ~ William Safire

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
(1) Avoid alliteration. Always
(2) Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
(3) Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.)
(4) Employ the vernacular.
(5) Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
(6) Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
(7) It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
(8) Contractions aren't necessary.
(9) Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
(10) One should never generalize.
(11) Eliminate quotations. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
(12) Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
(13) Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
(14) Profanity sucks.
(15) Be more or less specific.
(16) Understatement is always best.
(17) Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
(18) One-word sentences? Eliminate.
(19) Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
(20) The passive voice is to be avoided.
(21) Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
(22) Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
(23) Who needs rhetorical questions? ~ Frank L. Visco

'TIME's spell-check always admonishes me whenever I compose a sentence in the passive voice, a warning that is often ignored by me. ~ Richard Corliss

All research scientists know that writing in the passive voice is artificial; they are not disembodied observers, but people doing research. ~ Rupert Sheldrake

The following quote is from a Ted talk my sister sent to me that blew my mind....
We talk about how many women were raped last year, not about how many MEN raped women...
We talk about how many girls in a school district were harassed last year, not about how many BOYS harassed girls...
We talk about how many teenage girls got pregnant in the state of VA last year, rather than how many men and teenage boys got girls pregnant...
So you can see how the use of this passive voice has a political affect. It shifts the focus off men and boys, and onto girls and women. ~ Karen Kilgariff

Not long ago, I advertised for perverse rules of grammar, along the lines of "Remember to never split an infinitive" and "The passive voice should never be used." The notion of making a mistake while laying down rules ("Thimk," "We Never Make Misteaks") is highly unoriginal, and it turns out that English teachers have been circulating lists of fumblerules for years. As owner of the world's largest collection, and with thanks to scores of readers, let me pass along a bunch of these never-say-neverisms:

* Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
* Don't use no double negatives.
* Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.
* Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.
* Do not put statements in the negative form.
* Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
* No sentence fragments.
* Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
* Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
* If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
* A writer must not shift your point of view.
* Eschew dialect, irregardless.
* And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
* Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!
* Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
* Writers should always hyphenate between ~ William Safire

God calls us to have strength in our character and conduct, not simply a stiff upper lip in sorrow or a stubborn persistence during hardship. Secondarily, because the word is "passive voice," we know that the strength God demands He also provides. The strength does not come from a place inside us but a source beyond ourselves, namely, the Lord. ~ James MacDonald

Be as vigilantly on guard against translating such a sentence into the passive voice as you would against committing murder. ~ Jay Rubin

Aunt Bette." I started squirming toward her voice. "Are you okay?" "No, I'm not okay. We've been kidnapped and Marsh is drinking martinis and probably flirting with the waitress!" she snapped, and it sounded like she too was moving but not in my direction. ~ Kristen Ashley

Mostly she just missed Vaughn. Missed all those quiet, unspectacular moments that, when added up, showed how entwined their lives had become. And right now, she missed being able to phone him, because it would be so easy to tap in the eleven digits that would put his voice on the line. 'Grace, about bloody time,' he'd say, and make it sound like an endearment.

But she couldn't call Vaughn, because she'd left him. Which was a novelty, until Grace remembered that he'd have left her eventually if she hadn't done it first. She was never the one. She was never even the one before the one. She was the girl who seemed like a good idea at the time, but ultimately was just a phase that people went through.

That was the way it had always been. Friends and lovers came and went because there was something about her which repelled them, and she didn't have a clue what it was. It was a mystery that she couldn't solve on her own, and there wasn't a single person in the world who could help . . . ~ Sarra Manning

If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knights-errant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'? ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I never thought I would have this … You." I grip his shirt and look up into those beautiful eyes. "I never thought I would have you. I never even let myself hope for you, dream for you, and yet somehow here you are. You have changed my whole life, Edward. You've changed me, and I couldn't do this alone."
He smiles gently and strokes my face. "Yes, you could."
"But I wouldn't be me, not who I am now. I would be some other, emptier version of me." Another tear falls and another, and my voice breaks. "You are my joy and my heart…you are my home…and I would be lost without you."
…
"You will never be lost. I will be with you always. The vows were wrong. When death comes, he can have my body…but my soul will stay with you, I swear it. ~ Emma Chase

At last an authentic voice from Saudi Arabia. Al-Mohaimeed has written a remarkable, rhythmic, genuine novel. Wolves of the Crescent Moon throbs with sensuality and moral courage, as if it didn't take place in a society that denies the tick of the heart. ~ Hanan Al-Shaykh

Nobody wants a unitary voice of authority any more. ~ Jill Abramson

Jesus Christ!" sterling shouted. "Where'd you learn to drive?"
"nobody asked you for commentary!" Emma yelled back as they hurtled into the moving traffic. Luckily it was late and the lanes were mostly empty.
"I don't want to die on the pacific coast highway!" sterling wailed.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Emma's voice dripped acid. "Is there a different highway you'd like to die on? BECAUSE WE CAN ARRANGE THAT. ~ Cassandra Clare

You have no idea what it is," Ty said in a clipped voice. "You can't say it's going to be okay. You don't know. ~ Cassandra Clare

From outside the shelter came children's voices. The shrill squeals brought the excitement of their unseen game into the opaque quiet of Setsuko's world and made her smile. "No war can go on forever. And human beings are the toughest creatures on earth, you know. There's no sense in being in a hurry to die. You MUST LIVE, whatever happens." Shoichi Wakui had squeezed her hand and told her this with an almost violent urgency, though his grasp was weak and his voice halting. Were those the Sugiwaras' children she could hear? The barber had had the presence of mind to rescue his kit when he fled through the flames of his burning shop, and now he was doing a brisk trade, seating his customers on cushions atop piled stones from the foundations. To house his family he'd put a lean-to against the railway embankment, barely enough to keep out the weather, but at least the children were no longer starving. Even in defeat the locally garrisoned soldiers all had some supplies of food, and while waiting to board trains for their hometowns from Yokohama Station they'd sit on the stone seat of the Sugawara Barbershop and have a good shave, leaving the children something to eat as payment.
Setsuko no longer felt the rage that had overwhelmed her at the disbanding ceremony. If they had fought on home ground, one hundred million Japanese sworn to die before they would surrender, those children would have had to die too. Those young lives and spirits would have been extinguished in terror ~ Shizuko Gō

Tavi spent an eternity in misery, longing for death to bring sweet release from the unrelenting torment. The others gathered at the side of his bunk on the ship, keeping a deathwatch over him.

"I don't see what all the drama is about," Demos said, his quiet voice filled with habitual disinterst. "He's seasick. It will pass."~Captain's Fury ~ Jim Butcher

It is through victims such as myself who still have a voice that the world will change to be a better place. ~ Catherine Jane Fisher

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song. These are the occasions when the bolts of the universe fly open and we are given a glimpse of what is hidden; an eff of the ineffable. ~ Salman Rushdie

At the beginning, it was me, Run and D, but D's voice is messed up. ~ Jam Master Jay

Mae's voice was accusing. "Are you looking down my top?"

"Well," Nick said, "it's a new experience for me."

"Oh, really?"

"Generally girls take their tops off so fast around me," Nick explained. "It's hard to get a good down-the-shirt view. Not that I really complain, under the circumstances. Very nice, by the way."

Mae looked annoyed for a minute, and then a smile tugged at her mouth, drawing her away into amusement. "Well," she said, shrugging. "I grew them myself." ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

I guess when I really think about it, God's voice sounds a lot like my voice. ~ Erwin McManus

I felt that if a man's proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition, it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the living and meet with no response neither approval nor opposition just as if he were left helpless in a boundless desert. ~ Lu Xun

Sam wandered through the dark corridor, keeping a hand on the wall to maintain his balance. The stone floor was uneven, and he caught his toe on a couple of rocks that were sticking up in his path. He was about to give up and turn around when he heard something up ahead. He stopped in his tracks, thinking about Patrick Henry's ghost. He listened carefully and heard a man's voice coming from around the bend. ~ Steven K. Smith

She was only a few yards from the door. If she lunged, she could be safely inside with solid metal between her and the bear. But she had called to him, and he had come. The tranquilizer dart that she had shot on the sea ice now lay in front of her. Impossibly, inexplicably, the bear had brought it back to her. She felt light-headed, and she knew she was shaking. She raised her eyes to look at the bear.
He was a mass of shadows at the edge of the station floodlights. She could make out the shape of his muzzle and the hunch of his shoulders. "Cassandra Dasent," he said. His voice was a soft rumble.
She felt as if her heart had stopped beating. ~ Sarah Beth Durst

He drove his hips forward, connecting our bodies. For a second, time stopped. We were all that was left. He broke the kiss and stared down at me, unspoken questions in his eyes.

My heard pounded against my ribs as I lost myself in the ocean of his eyes. "You're mine," I whispered, wonder in my voice.

He nodded slowly, his hand caressing my cheek. "I am. ~ Lisa Kessler

Let's fool around."
"And then?" he asked, voice low.
"When it's time, take blood, and then let's fuck."
He gave a surprised burst of laughter. "Ma petite, you are such a sweet-talker, how can I refuse? ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

She crawled," Ben said. There were tears in his voice. That was wrong. Ben barely even tolerated me on the best of days. "She crawled to the bathroom to clean herself again. If it weren't for the two subs in the pack, I'd be on the bottom. And she wouldn't stand up in my presence for guilt. ~ Patricia Briggs

Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home, and must look far and wide to find one. Home is the center of my being, where I can hear the voice that says, "You are my beloved. On you my favor rests," the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam. The same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light. I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love wherever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am home with God and have nothing to fear. As the beloved of my heavenly Father, "I can walk in the valley of darkness: no evil would I fear." As the beloved I can "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils." Having "received without charge," I can "give without charge." As the Beloved, I can confront, console, admonish, and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation. As the Beloved I can suffer persecution without desire for revenge and receive praise without using it as a proof of my goodness. As the Beloved I can be tortured and killed without ever having to doubt that the love that is given to me is stronger than death. As the Beloved I am free to live and give life, free also to die while giving life.
Jesus has made it clear to me that the same voice that h ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

This is a recorded announcement," it said, "as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. The commercial council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit ... " ("A voice from ancient Magrathea!" shouted Zaphod. "Okay, okay," said Ford.) " ... but regrets," continued the voice, "that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you. If you would care to leave your name and the address of a planet where you can be contacted, kindly speak when you hear the tone. ~ Douglas Adams

It may seem strange to you, but there are no such creatures in Athazie. There is an animal-a very large animal-that lives on the plains and is much the same shape. We call it gadahama. The golden hunter. He does not say meep, meep as these tiny ones do. His voice is like this.' He drew in a deep breath, then let out a deafening roar. The cats fled in all directions at once as they scrambled away. ~ Zoe Marriott

And he had lost his focus again. He tried his Skeletor voice, a less frequently used but effective attention-focusing tactic: Skeletor to Shawn Danger! Skeletor to Shawn Danger! Focus, Danger! Skeletor was a shitty life coach, but something about his grating voice could sometimes spur him into action. ~ Nina Post

I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them. ~ Miriam Makeba

Neither of us knows what the public will think. There's no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin (at forty) to say something in my own voice; and that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without praise. ~ Virginia Woolf

It's not easy to sit and trust that in solitude God will speak to you - not as a magical voice but that God will let you know something gradually over the years. And in that word from God you will find the inner place from which to live your life. Solitude is where spiritual ministry begins. That's where Jesus listened to God. That's where we listen to God. ~ Henri Nouwen

I was never particularly fond of my voice. ~ David Bowie

You know," he said, his voice making me feel cold in spite of the heat, "this city can get ahold of you and pull you back no matter how hard you try to climb out. Like a grave. ~ Neal Shusterman

Without your voice being heard in Washington, the decisions we make aren't as good. I would urge women to consider public service. And if you want to run, give me a call. I'll help. ~ Kirsten Gillibrand

The Black Mountain poet I like most is the early Creeley. Those early poems seem very lyrical and very traditional, with a lot of voice and character. ~ Robert Morgan

Fuck, this is gonna piss you off and then you aren't gonna let me stick my dick in you," he muttered.
"Do you have to be so crude?" I snapped.
"Have you met me?"
"Who says I'd let you do it anyway?"
"Babe," he replied in a low, rough voice, raising his eyebrow at me. ~ Joanna Wylde

So I had this date last night," Dane goes on, ignoring my order. "Do you remember that girl from Sigma Kappa Whatever? She was at the gig last night, and everything was going great, both of us eye-fucking for like four frickin' hours…" He pauses and turns to me, his voice turning urgent. "She takes me home, dude, and I'm sitting in the living room while she's in the bathroom, and I'm so ready, because she's so hot, right? And who walks in?"

"Dane." I close my eyes, willing him to shut the fuck up.

"Her mom, dude!" he bursts out. "Her mom in her light pink nightie with legs for days. And let me tell you, man…Stacy's mom has got it going on?"

I can't help myself. I break out in a laugh at the song reference and pinch the bridge of my nose, tired but a fraction more relaxed, even if I'd never admit it to him.

Such an idiot. ~ Penelope Douglas

In the second installment, I pretty much dominate the show. Somehow or another, though, I manage to apparently dominate the first show pretty well with just my voice and my hands and a shot of my boots kicking cartridges out of the way. ~ David Carradine

My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute. ~ Adele

Our perceptions are an ongoing, ever-growing. ever-changing story, and our brain allows us to be not just passive listeners to that story, but also the storytellers as well ~ Beau Lotto