W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Grammar is the analysis of language.

Grammar is the grave of letters.

Logic is to grammar what the sense of words is to their sound.

Grammar is...the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.

A schoolchild should be taught grammar - for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.

Well, language seems to be something that obsesses me. I'm always writing about it.

I love words.

Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.

I still put punctuation in my texts. If it's an 'I', I make sure it's a capital.

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

Anarchy is as detestable in grammar as it is in society.

… a barbarian who could not write one sentence of grammar.

I, like many annoying pedants, will wince when someone says 'less' when they should have said 'fewer.' But my 'poor' sounds like poo-ah, not pore; and my 'grass' rhymes with mass, not farce. What's wrong with that?

The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible.

Grammar, which can govern even Kings.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

No one complains of the rules of Grammar as fettering Language; because it is understood that correct use is not founded on Grammar, but Grammar on correct use. A just system of Logic or of Rhetoric is analogous, in this respect, to Grammar.

Logic chases truth up the tree of grammar.

The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this.

Forcing modern speakers of English to not - whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn't done in Latin makes about as much sense as forcing modern residents of England to wear laurels and togas.

I have tons of stuff that, you know, seems like it's a well-constructed sentence but it is not how people talk, it's how people write. So that's why I think it's sometimes easier for me to write for actors 'cause I know what's frustrating about, you know, sentences that come out just perfect. Well, who talks like that? And who of us don't overlap each other? Except on the radio, hopefully.

With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semicolin; it's a useful little chap

All language begins with speech, and the speech of common men at that, but when it develops to the point of becoming a literary medium it only looks like speech.

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly, I think any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.