“My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs because, full disclosure: I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, "Don't write that," or "Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats."” MenGivingShouldWritingSometimesVoiceFourTerribleGiving UpCatCriticalSentencesCoffeeAwakePetDragonsEggsBreakfastClicksBest TimesDisclosure Author:Jeff VanderMeer
“I'm just very, very slow. I would not make it as a journalist, I've got to tell you. I sweat bullets over every sentence, and sometimes, you know, a day will pass and I've written one paragraph, and I've been at the computer for four hours.” KnowsSometimesHoursFourWrittenComputerSentencesJournalistSweatBulletsParagraph Author:Susan Elizabeth Phillips
“I'm suddenly worried people will think that I believe their religion can be summed up on four sex-obsessed sentences.” PeopleThinkingBelieveI BelieveSexFourSentencesWorriedObsessed Author:Ryan North
“What's the difference between Lindsay Lohan and Rick Perry? It only takes Lindsay four and a half hours to finish a sentence.” HoursDifferencesHalfFourSentencesHalf Hours Author:Jay Leno
“Campaign analysts say that Dean has produced the most innovative web site in this year's presidential race. I particularly like today's blog, which consisted of the sentence 'I hate myself,' typed four billion times. In Dean's case, this may be the first instance where the actually entity represented by the web site has crashed more often than the site did.” YearsFirstsMayTodayHateRaceCasesFourI HateSentencesBillionsCampaignsInstancePresidentialEntitySiteInnovativeBlogsDeanAnalystsHate MyselfI Hate Myself Author:Dennis Miller
“Maximum sentence length: seventeen words. Minimum:one No semicolons. Semicolons indicate relationships that only idiots need defined by punctuation. Besides, they are ugly. Make sure each sentence is at least four words longer or shorter than the one before it.” NeedsFourUglySentencesDefinedIdiotLengthMinimumMaximumSeventeenPunctuation Author:Richard Hugo
“Many young people today do not concern themselves with style. They think that what one says should be said simply and that is all. For me, style - which does not exclude simplicity, quite the opposite - is above all a way of saying three or four things in one. There is the simple sentence, with its immediate meaning, and then at the same time, below this immediate meaning, other meanings are organized. If one is not capable of giving language this plurality of meaning, then it is not worth the trouble to write.” PeopleIfsThinkingWayGivingShouldWritingDoeSaidTodayYoungThreeLanguageSimpleFourTroubleStyleCapableConcernOppositesSimplicitySentencesOrganized Book:Sartre in the Seventies: Interviews and Essays Source: Sartre in the Seventies: Interviews and Essays
“Four. That's what I want you to remember. If you don't get your idea across in the first four minutes, you won't do it. Four sentences to a paragraph. Four letters to a word. The most important words in the English language all have four letters. Home. Love. Food. Land. Peace. . .I know peace has five letters, but any damn fool knows it should have four.” IfsKnowsWantShouldFirstsImportantIdeasHomeRememberLanguageFiveFourLandMinutesFoolLettersShould HaveSentencesDamnI Want YouEnglish LanguageParagraphFood LoveImportant Words Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
“I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four months.” YearsFirstsBookLastsThreeTakenFourWrittenMonthsSentencesFifteenFifteen Years Author:Paul Auster
“I've learned a lot about language from reading slush. You can immediately tell if a writer is in control of the narrative. This writer will avoid using too many words like "possibly," "probably," "maybe," "perhaps," etc. He/she will avoid using clichés, as well as a lot of metaphors, and won't take four sentences to say what they could in one (or write a great sentence and follow it up with a bunch of stuff that just weakens it).” IfsWritingWellsReadingLanguageStuffFourMetaphorSentencesBunchNarrativeI've LearnedEtcSlush Author:Mary J. Miller