Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me this will take time but there is order here very faint very human. Meander if you want to get to town.

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion I would say I was against it.

I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion no political party and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way ours is merely another way.

Censorship is saying: 'I'm the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say the conclusion is mine.' But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word - even if someone has a very weak quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.

Lapped in poetry wrapped in the picturesque armed with logical sentences and inalienable words.

When I really want to be soothed and reminded of why people bother to fiddle with sentences I often read poetry.

When you translate poetry in particular you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words sentences phrases the triple tension between the line of verse the syntax and the sentence.

However if a poem can be reduced to a prose sentence there can't be much to it.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do and all the things that evolved out of word processing - 'Oh let's put that sentence there let's get rid of this' - have become commonplace in films and music too.

I like to edit my sentences as I write them. I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me that editing process feels like a form of play like a puzzle that needs solving and it's one of the most satisfying parts of writing.

The best movies have one sentence that they're exploring a thesis something that people can argue about over dinner afterward.

Making films can be absolutely fantastic but it can also be incredibly dull. You spend the whole day sitting by yourself in your trailer and then you get called to deliver one sentence - then you're told to come back and do it again at 5:30 the following morning.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.

Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process.

A significant number of pages and sentences that the administration wants to keep in a classified status have already been released publicly some of it by public statements of the leadership of the CIA and the FBI.

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple but nourishing to the imagination.

We are all serving a life sentence and good behavior is our only hope for a pardon.

In general shorter is better. If you can encapsulate your idea into a single captivating sentence you're halfway home.

A good compromise a good piece of legislation is like a good sentence or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'

All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough you can see the stars.

Most laws condemn the soul and pronounce sentence. The result of the law of my God is perfect. It condemns but forgives. It restores - more than abundantly - what it takes away.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more and theory less and less. A fact it seems to me is a great thing a sentence printed if not by God then at least by the Devil.