Lynne Truss...when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and o… ▶371ReadingThought
Lynne TrussA Panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air. Why? asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The… ▶351LifeReading
Lynne TrussThe reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning. ✨ Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punc… ▶374PhilosophyReading
Lynne TrussWhat the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they… ▶341Life
Lynne TrussIt used to be just CIA agents with ear-pieces who walked round with preoccupied, faraway expressions, and consequently regarded all the little people as irrelevant scum. Now, unde… ▶363Humanity
Lynne TrussTexting is a supremely secretive medium of communication - it's like passing a note - and this means we should be very careful what we use it for. ✨ The joy of text by Will … ▶331Reading
Lynne TrussEvidently an A level in English is a sacred trust, like something out of The Lord of the Rings. You must go forth with your A level and protect the English language with your bow … ▶321Humanity
Lynne TrussManners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.322Philosophy
Lynne TrussTruly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word punctilious (attentive to formality or eti… ▶322Reading
Lynne TrussI recently heard of someone studying the ellipsis (or three dots) for a PhD. And, I have to say, I was horrified. The ellipsis is the black hole of the punctuation universe, surel… ▶335DeathThought
Lynne TrussTo those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as Thank God its Friday (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the pos… ▶346Hope
Lynne TrussFor any true stickler, you see, the sight of the plural word “Book’s” with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavemen… ▶368ReadingSadnessTruth
Lynne TrussWhen you by nature subscribe to the view that everyone except yourself is a berk or a wanker, it is hard to bond with anybody in any rational common cause.303Politics
Lynne TrussThe main advantage of working at home is that you get to find out what cats really do all day.271Sadness
Lynne TrussTexting is a fundamentally sneaky form of communication, which we should despise, but it is such a boon we don't care. We are all sneaks now. ✨ The joy of text by Will Self,… ▶304Philosophy
Lynne TrussPunctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop. ✨ Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Appro… ▶294Reading
Lynne TrussThe problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against … ▶261HumanityPoliticsReading
Lynne TrussIf we looked inside ourselves and remembered how insignificant we are, just for a couple of minutes a day, respect for other people would be an automatic result.316Humanity
Lynne TrussIf you still persist in writing, Good food at it's best, you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.3510Politics
Lynne TrussWhy did the Apostrophe Protection Society not have a militant wing? Could I start one? Where do you get balaclavas? ✨ Lynne Truss (2011). Eats, Shoots and Leaves, p.12, Harp… ▶316Humanity
Lynne TrussThe rule is: the word 'it's' (with apostrophe) stands for 'it is' or 'it has'. If the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has' then what you require is 'its'. This is extremely… ▶318Reading
Lynne TrussWe read privately, mentally listening to the author's voice and translating the writer's thoughts. The book remains static and fixed; the reader journeys through it.274ReadingThought
Lynne TrussThe advent of the mobile phone was a disaster. We are forced to listen, open-mouthed, to other people's intimate conversations. Increasingly, we are all in our virtual bubbles whe… ▶241HumanityReading
Lynne TrussBrackets come in various shapes, types and names: 1 round brackets (which we call brackets, and the Americans call parentheses) 2 square brackets [which we call square brackets, a… ▶286Humanity
Lynne TrussOffence is so easily given. And where the 'minority' issue is involved, the rules seem to shift about: most of the time a person who is female/black/disabled/gay wants this not to… ▶253Time
Lynne TrussIn the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the bi… ▶243Humor
Lynne TrussPanda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.255Philosophy
Lynne TrussProper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.191Thought
Lynne TrussSticklers never read a book without a pencil at hand, to correct the typographical errors. In short, we are unattractive know-all obsessives who get things out of proportion and a… ▶246Reading
Lynne TrussWe have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and elusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered wit… ▶279Thought
