Quotes About Emphasis

You must make the main thing in your picture appear most important. If anyone tells me my hat is more important than my head - by God I'm taking off my hat.

So far as good writing goes, the use of the exclamation mark is a sign of failure. It is the literary equivalent of a man holding up a card reading LAUGHTER to a studio audience.

Even as she'd been writing it, she wondered if she was using too many exclamation marks, but she was glad she left them in. Nothing says "all is good in the world" like exclamation marks, after all.

There has to be a woman, but not much of a one. A good horse is much more important.

The na at the end of banana annoys me as much as it would you if it were bananana.

Like a missing tooth, sometimes an absence is more noticeable than a presence.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression - all of that is very important.

It is not the bigness of the words you utter, but the force with which you deliver them.

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

We always weaken whatever we exaggerate.

Although the emphasis during the late Middle Ages was upon the provision of books for private patrons, many manuscripts were also made for public use.

the person who is working is always more important than the work the person is doing.

Recuerda, la moda es pasajera. Cuando pones el énfasis en cualidades permanentes, estás incorporando características que nunca pasan.

rechazo a la inversa. Acepto para destruir. Digo sí para acentuar mi negación tácita.

The name Maldoror, suggesting as it does evil, gold, horror, dawn, sadness etc., seems a curious hybrid, but on reading the work its full title, Les Chants de Maldoror par Le Comte de Lautreamont, seems to contain & imply the constant switches in narrative emphasis-the self as a game (je-jeu) & the author as observer, participant & invisible man-as well as being an inevitable & accurate condensation of, or hint at, the contents.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

I really don't care about plot. I really, really don't.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another.

I used to enjoy using dots where they would be least expected, not at the end of a sentence but in the middle, creating the effect... of a skipped beat. It seemed to me the mind reacted - first!... in dots, dashes, and exclamation points, then rationalized, drew up a brief, with periods.

I would hope people remember the playing days first, and not the coaching years.

My thing is in the pitch, that's my concern.

I try to write conversationally; I try to write like people speak and put the emphasis on the right syllable.

Frey, James, How to Write a Damn Good Novel. Helpful emphasis on the three C's of Premise: character, conflict, and conclusion; useful throughout. One of the damn best books on the subject.