Verbs After Quotes

The keeping of lists was for November an exercise kin to repeating of a rosary. She considered it neither obsessive nor compulsive, but a ritual, an essential ordering of the world into tall, thin jars containing perfect nouns. Enough nouns connected one to the other create a verb, and verbs had created everything, had skittered across the face of the void like pebbles across a frozen pond. She had not created a verb herself, but the cherry-wood cabinet in the hall contained book after book, jar after jar, vessel upon vessel, all brown as branches, and she had faith. ~ Catherynne M Valente

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

Looping. Some days are so dark I can't see anything but a miserable fog of number after number, word after word, clouds of verbs and nouns and none of them the ones that will make time go backward. ~ Maria Dahvana Headley

My Spanish is getting a little bit loose. Sometimes I go to Spain and after I've been talking with my folks for a while ... you start changing the verb for the adjective, for example, which is a common thing between Spanish and English. I change that sometimes but after a couple days there, boom, I'm back. ~ Antonio Banderas

The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: 1) A blind willingness to believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other "official spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze ... and: 2) A Roget's Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph.
Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that said: "The precision-jack-hammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jack-thrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint-precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stomps around both ends ... ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I should start with an apology to Rudy Giuliani. I said every sentence Rudy utters has a noun, a verb, and 9/11 in it. I was wrong. He called me to tell me after Pat Robertson's endorsement, there's an Amen in every sentence he says too. ~ Joe Biden

I watched the enormity of the clouds for several minutes. What I wanted to experience in the water, I realized, was how life of the reef was layered and intertwined. I now had many individual pieces at hand: named images, nouns. How were they related? What were the verbs? Which syntaxes were indigenous to the place? I asked a dozen knowledgeable people. No one was inclined to elaborate- or they didn't know. "Did you see the octopus?" Someone shouted after the dive. Yes, I thought, but who among us knows what it was doing? What else was THERE, just then? WHY? ~ Barry Lopez

Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

There are two basic groups of German verbs ... strong and weak. Weak verbs are regular verbs that follow typical rules. Strong verbs are irregular. They don't follow patterns. You deal with strong verbs on your own terms ... Like people, ... The strong ones stand out. The weak ones are the same. ~ Jill Alexander Essbaum

The top 10 verbs in the English language are all irregular, even though irregular verbs make up only 3 per cent of the language. ~ Erez Lieberman Aiden

I'm uncomfortable with verbs; they expect too much. ~ Caitriona Lally

We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do ... forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in , the fundamental verb, to Be. ~ Evelyn Underhill

You wouldn't believe the kind of hate mail I get about my work on irregular verbs. ~ Steven Pinker

You know what would help the instruction form? Verbs! Verbs would be nice! Because they help you get to the end of a thought! ~ Lewis Black

Poetry is all nouns and verbs. ~ Marianne Moore

If you go through any newspaper or magazine and look for active, kicking verbs in the sentences, you will realize that this lack of well used verbs is the main trouble with modern English writing. Almost all nonfiction nowadays is written in a sort of pale, colorless sauce of passives and infinitives, motionless and flat as paper. ~ Rudolf Flesch

So many problems are solved simply by knowing enough verbs. ~ Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writing can be described in two verbs: Throw up and clean up. ~ Ray Bradbury

Love is a verb and verbs show action ~ Mr. T

It wasn't fair that men got the verbs and she ended up with adjectives. Jack plotted and squeezed and bulldozed. She was caught snooping - pathetic participle, half verb, half adjective. ~ John Casey

Root out all the "to be" verbs in your prose and bludgeon them until dead. No "It was" or "they are" or "I am." Don't let it be, make it happen. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

so many theological terms, words like 'monotheism' are late constructs, convenient shorthands for sentences with verbs in them, and that sentences with verbs in them are the real stuff of theology, ~ N. T. Wright

Most metaphysical words in Hopi are verbs, not nouns as in European languages. ~ Benjamin Whorf

At one stage in the history of English, the past tenses of verbs were marked by a regular vowel change process; instead of "help/helped," we had "help/holp." Over time, -ed became the preferred way to mark the past tense, and eventually the past tense of most verbs was formed by adding -ed. But the old pattern was preserved in verbs like "eat/ate," "give/gave," "take/ took," "get/got" - verbs that are used very often, and so are more entrenched as a linguistic habit (the very frequently used "was/ were" is a holdover from an even older pattern). They became irregular because the world changed around them. ~ Arika Okrent

The worst of this sorry bunch of semi-educated losers are those who seem to glory in being irritated by nouns becoming verbs. How dense and deaf to language development do you have to be? If you don't like nouns becoming verbs, then for heaven's sake avoid Shakespeare who made a doing-word out of a thing-word every chance he got. He TABLED the motion and CHAIRED the meeting in which nouns were made verbs ~ Stephen Fry

Although all new talkers say names, use similar sounds, and prefer nouns more
than other parts of speech, the ratio of nouns to verbs and adjectives varies
from place to place (Waxman et al., 2013). For example, by 18 months, Englishspeaking infants speak far more nouns than verbs compared to Chinese or Korean
infants. Why?
One explanation goes back to the language itself. The Chinese and Korean
languages are "verb-friendly" in that verbs are placed at the beginning or end of
sentences. That facilitates learning. By contrast, English verbs occur anywhere in
a sentence, and their forms change in illogical ways (e.g., go, gone, will go, went).
This irregularity may make English verbs harder to learn, although the fact that
English verbs often have distinctive suffixes (-ing, -ed) and helper words (was, did,
had) may make it easier (Waxman et al., 2013). ~ Kathleen Stassen Berger

I learnt the verbs of will, and had my secret;
The code of night tapped on my tongue;
What had been one was many sounding minded. ~ Dylan Thomas

Verbs allow you to communicate a story in a much more converged or involuntary way for a reader. The verbs allow you to come in under the radar, below people's defenses. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It's not "integrity," it's "always do the right thing." It's not "innovation," it's "look at the problem from a different angle." Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea ... we ~ Simon Sinek

He spares no resource in telling of his dead inventions ... Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the passing colloquialism into his service. His vast paragraphis sweat and struggle; the ~ H.G.Wells

James Blish told me I had the worst case of "said bookism" (that is, using every word except said to indicate dialogue). He told me to limit the verbs to said, replied, asked, and answered and only when absolutely necessary. ~ Anne McCaffrey

I know I have difficulties with some verbs. But if they get me, they get me. And if they don't understand me, they don't understand me. ~ Thalia

The time is right to mix sentences with dirt and the sun with punctuation and rain with verbs. ~ Richard Brautigan

Can one invent verbs? I want to tell you one: I sky you, so my wings extend so large to love you without measure. ~ Frida Kahlo

Verbs come in two types, active and passive. With an active verb, the subject of the sentence is doing something. With a passive verb, something is being done to the subject of the sentence. ~ Stephen King

I think there simply comes a point at which you're beating your head against the wall with revision, when you're making something different but not better. For me, revision usually has more to do with making the language prettier, finding clearer images, using more active verbs. ~ Mary J. Miller

If you know how to handle the verbs, you know how to handle the language. Everything else is just vocabulary. ~ Michel Thomas

I," she [the Holy Spirit] opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, "I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active and moving. I am a being verb. And as my very essence is a verb, I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless 'I am' there are no verbs and verbs are what makes the universe alive. ~ Wm. Paul Young

I talk in subjects and verbs, and sort of wind around in concentric circles until I get far enough away from the beginning so that I can call it the end, and it ends. ~ Garrison Keillor

No proper princess would come out looking for dragons," Woraug objected.
"Well I'm not a proper princess then!" Cimorene snapped. "I make cherries jubillee and I volunteer for dragons, and I conjugate Latin verbs
or at least I would if anyone would let me. So there! ~ Patricia C. Wrede

He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went for the jugular. Active verbs that danced and raced on the page. ~ Robert Cormier

Adjectives are used as nouns ("greats," "notables"). Nouns are used as verbs ("to host"), or they are chopped off to form verbs ("enthuse," "emote"), or they are padded to form verbs ("beef up," "put teeth into"). This is a world where eminent people are "famed" and their associates are "staffers," where the future is always "upcoming" and someone is forever "firing off" a note. Nobody in America has sent a note or a memo or a telegram in years. Famed diplomat Condoleezza Rice, who hosts foreign notables to beef up the morale of top State Department staffers, sits down and fires off a lot of notes. Notes that are fired off are always fired in anger and from a sitting position. What the weapon is I've never found out. ~ William Zinsser

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called "separable verbs." The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. ~ Mark Twain

Each new generation builds on the work of the previous one, gaining new perspective. New verbs are introduced. We Google strange and dangerous places. We tweet mindlessly to the cosmos. We Facebook our own grandmothers. I, for one, don't want to be left behind. ~ Daniel H. Wilson

Nouns, verbs do not exist for what I feel. ~ John Berryman

One of them had been limited to nouns, verbs, and roaring. ~ Margaret Atwood

Sydney! Stop. Think of something else. Conjugate Latin verbs. Recite the periodic table. ~ Richelle Mead

Observations," he says.
"Four imperial Unseelie guards were the only commonality I was able to isolate endemic to both scenes." They'd been standing, armed, at the dock doors, overseeing the delivery.
He gives me a sidewise look. "Wow. That was, like, a whole sentence. With nouns and verbs and connective tissue. Endemic. Fancy word. ~ Karen Marie Moning

To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal human tendency to say things straightforwardly must be detected and defeated by adroit reversals; and, if a glimmer of meaning yet remain under close scrutiny, it must be removed by replacing all the principal verbs by paraphrases in some dead language. ~ Aleister Crowley

The writer has to take the most used, most familiar objects - nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs - ball them together and make them bounce, turn them a certain way and make people get into a romantic mood; and another way, into a bellicose mood. I'm most happy to be a writer. ~ Maya Angelou

I do so like all-encompassing words. Verb, adjective, noun. Yes, you are shitted. ~ Kim Harrison

If he was trying German irregular verbs on the poor beast," said Clovis, "he deserved all he got. ~ Saki

Adverbs are a sign that you've used the wrong verb. ~ Annie Dillard

To me, Faith is not just a noun but also a verb ~ Jimmy Carter

Nouns and verbs hold the power but syntax casts the spell. ~ Janet Peery

If you are using an adverb, you have got the verb wrong. ~ Kingsley Amis

Don't you DARE use party as a verb in my shop ~ Dylan Moran

Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence. ~ Jasper Fforde

His sentences didn't seem to have any verbs, which was par for a politician. All nouns, no action. ~ Jennifer Crusie

When I got bored, I conjugated verbs. Kissing and conjugating go well together. They're both French. No. ~ Rebekah Crane

Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, ease after war, death after life, doth greatly please ... ~ Agatha Christie

I hate all these crazy verbs, using a subjunctive to get what's happened in the future and the past mixed up. ~ Kerstin Gier

The Apple Pie Hubbub was a significant novel for me, because that's when I first started using verbs. ~ Steve Martin

The lady had a rapier for a tongue. She jabbed with nouns, riposted with verbs. ~ Valerie Bowman

I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down ... ~ Eddie Vedder

When it's done properly, taco should be a verb. ~ Jonathan Gold

I am leaking letters and dripping verbs and bathing myself in the actions they long to take. ~ Tyler Knott Gregson

Ours is an active faith. It is made alive and appealing only when our nouns turn into verbs. ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Life is a verb, not a noun. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Sometimes I feel there are doors lurking in the creases of every sentence, with periods for knobs and verbs for hinges. ~ Alix E. Harrow

She longed for cutlasses, pistols, and brandy; she had to make do with coffee, and pencils, and verbs. ~ Philip Pullman

Knowledge needs to be a verb. ~ W. Edwards Deming

Love is more than a word. It's a noun and a verb. ~ LeCrae

Erroneous plurals of nouns, as vallies or echos.
Barbarous compound nouns, as viewpoint or upkeep.
Want of correspondence in number between noun and verb where the two are widely separated or the construction involved.
Ambiguous use of pronouns.
Erroneous case of pronouns, as whom for who, and vice versa, or phrases like "between you and I," or "Let we who are loyal, act promptly."
Erroneous use of shall and will, and of other auxiliary verbs.
Use of intransitive for transitive verbs, as "he was graduated from college," or vice versa, as "he ingratiated with the tyrant."
Use of nouns for verbs, as "he motored to Boston," or "he voiced a protest."
Errors in moods and tenses of verbs, as "If I was he, I should do otherwise," or "He said the earth was round."
The split infinitive, as "to calmly glide."
The erroneous perfect infinitive, as "Last week I expected to have met you."
False verb-forms, as "I pled with him."
Use of like for as, as "I strive to write like Pope wrote."
Misuse of prepositions, as "The gift was bestowed to an unworthy object," or "The gold was divided between the five men."
The superfluous conjunction, as "I wish for you to do this."
Use of words in wrong senses, as "The book greatly intrigued me," "Leave me take this," "He was obsessed with the idea," or "He is a meticulous writer."
Erroneous use of non-Anglicised foreign forms, as "a strange phenomena," or "two ~ H.P. Lovecraft

I miss Latin. So much fun
all those exciting verbs that don't come until the end of the sentence. It's like a movie trailer for language. ~ Libba Bray

Life on earth is more like a verb. It repairs, maintains, re-creates, and outdoes itself. ~ Lynn Margulis

Fear is only a verb if you let it be. Don't you dare let go of my hand! ~ Andrea Gibson

We spend most of our lives conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do. ~ Evelyn Underhill

For example, from nouns to verbs to aspects of grammar, we each store language in different areas, recruiting different regions for different components. ~ John Medina

The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German.
from Disappearance of Literature ~ Mark Twain

Art is a Verb, not a Noun. ~ Ernest West Basden

My wife wanted to call our daughter Sue, but I felt that in our family that is usually a verb. ~ Dennis Wolfberg

Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. ~ Janet Fitch

A distributed, decentralized network is more a process than a thing. In the logic of the Net there is a shift from nouns to verbs. ~ Kevin Kelly

There are but two future verbs which man may appropriate confidently and without pride: "I shall suffer," and "I shall die. ~ Sophie Swetchine

Pick a better verb. Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an A-bomb. ~ Janet Fitch

Green is a process, not a status. We need to think of 'green' as a verb, not an adjective. ~ Daniel Goleman

To love is an active verb. ~ Ogden Nash

Language is a theme in the whole book, no? I mean it ends with the title poem about words are all we have. I guess midrash makes sense. How does it change in the course of the sequence? Well, God is into No and into Stasis/Nouns. Adam and Eve, in order to be in this world (and get this world going) must choose verbs. Which is to gain sex but also to choose death and all else that goes with change. To choose becoming over being. ~ Gregory Orr

Breathe deep."
"Deeply," I forced out through my tingling mouth.
"What?"
"Deeply. Adverbs follow verbs."
"Seriously? You're giving me a grammar lesson in the middle of your barfing? ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Check the cover letter. In a cover letter, you get actual communication instead of a list of skills, verbs, and years of irrelevance. ~ Jason Fried

Never use 'submit' as a verb for sending work to magazine or book publishers; say 'offer,' and never, ever submit. Keep your knees unbent. Be brave. ~ Frederick Busch

Can verbs be made up? I'll tell you one. I heaven you, so my wings will open wide to love you boundlessly. ~ Frida Kahlo

You see, in our family we don't know whether we're coming or going - it's all my grandmother's fault. But, of course, the fault wasn't hers at all: it lay in language. Every language assumes a centrality, a fixed and settled point to go away from and come back to, and what my grandmother was looking for was a word for a journey which was not a coming or a going at all; a journey that was a search for precisely that fixed point which permits the proper use of verbs of movement. ~ Amitav Ghosh

A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image. ~ Elaine De Kooning

A garden without its statue is like a sentence without its verb. ~ Joseph Beach

There are moments in our lives that seem to define us. Moments we keep going back to.
My life before him was so simple & decided. And now after him...there's just...After. ~ Anna Todd (Author Of After)

Beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't ~ George Orwell

If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein