Every so often, I try to masturbate a large word into my conversation, even if I'm not really sure what it means - a student in an English class

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place - G B Shaw

If there is a single word to describe me, that word would be "profectionist" - sentence in a job appliction

In BC, how did the people know to count the years backwards? - a student in a history class, learning about BC and AD

Interjector to the former Australian Prime Minister at an election meeting: "Wotcha gonna do about 'ousing?"
Sir Robert Menzies: Put an "H" in front of it.

Teach grammar and punctuation to would-be writers? Wouldn't it be more fun to herd cats instead? - Don Dale

An editor should have a pimp for a brother so he'd have someone to look up to - Gene Fowler

Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted - Fred Allen

I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse condition - the curtain was up - Groucho Marx

Nature not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write - A E Housman

I used to use a fossil-fuel-encased carbon-based digitally manipulated data extrusion device with manual deletion function, but now I just use a pencil - Merrill Perlman

If you would converse with me, first you must define your terms - Voltaire

"Always" and "never" are two words that you should always remember to never use - dubious advice to writers

If the proposed reviewer of a book knows the name of the author's dog, then the relationship is too close. And, yes, it's OK to substitute "cat". - anon

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity - Benjamin Disraeli, about William Gladstone

Many thanks; I shall lose no time in reading it - Benjamin Disraeli (his standard reply to an author who sent him an unsolicited manuscript)

In short, every author, whether novice or veteran, needs an editor who takes no prisoners - New York Times Book Review

Young boy, to his mother: "Gee, Mum, you'd correct my English if I was dying."
Mother: "Were!"

An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do, but has escaped the terrible desire to write - E B White

The main reason to have multiple style guides on the shelf is so that we can choose the one that agrees with us - Geoff Hart

Grant me the serenity to recognise the prose I should not change; the ability to improve the prose I can; and the wisdom to know the difference - Susanna J Sturgis, a copyeditor

True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only - La Rochefoucauld

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all. - Rita Mae Brown

Oh, they have Internet on computers now? - Homer Simpson

History repeats itself anyway - plagarism saves time - anon

It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word - Andrew Jackson

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. - Oscar Wilde

It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase "as pretty as an airport" appear - Douglas Adams

Thanks to Mr and Mrs Bernard Shaw for countless suggestions of great value and diversity: and for all the present semicolons - T E Lawrence, in the preface to his Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one - A J Liebling

A baby born during the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages had more chance of celebrating its first birthday than a new Australian novel published today - Dawn Cohen

It is not the work of an editor to teach writers how to write - Katherine White

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die - Isaac Asimov

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain

I never write metropolis when I get the same five cents for city - Mark Twain

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible - George Burns

String of Light Pole Thefts around the City Leaves Officials in the Dark - Baltimore Sun headline

Ignorance of the Good Book Reaches Biblical Proportions - Sacramento Bee headline

Utah Risks Loosing its Best Teachers - Salt Lake Tribune headline, indicating that it was already too late

First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs. - language under a dictatorship

gak: a magical word, which means different things at different times to different people - from a dictionary of slang

jargon: language used by managers to obfuscate, bamboozle and befuddle everyone, even themselves - Rodney Marks

There was once a very tasty snack cracker called "HITS". It failed to sell in large numbers, because when the boxes were lined up next to each other on the shelf the product did not seem so appealing after all.