Quotes About Passive Voice

#1. Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation.

William Safire

#2. 'TIME's spell-check always admonishes me whenever I compose a sentence in the passive voice, a warning that is often ignored by me.

Richard Corliss

#3. Never use the passive voice. Do not say, 'It will get done.' Say, 'I'll do it,' and then stick to a solid, unwavering deadline

Gina Barreca

#4. The passive voice could always be used to obscure blame.

Lorrie Moore

#5. All research scientists know that writing in the passive voice is artificial; they are not disembodied observers, but people doing research.

Rupert Sheldrake

#6. Each time I see a split infinitive, an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister.

Sonia Sotomayor

#7. Using the passive voice is always very helpful. Mind you, a lot of that propaganda English emanates from here. The British establishment has always used the passive voice. It's been a weapon of discourse so those who committed terrible acts in the old empire could not be identified.

John Pilger

#8. Be as vigilantly on guard against translating such a sentence into the passive voice as you would against committing murder.

Jay Rubin

#9. Strunk and White don't speculate as to why so many writers are attracted to passive verbs, but I'm willing to; I think timid writers like them for the same reason timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.

Stephen King

#10. Passive voice is better than writing out a humongous number and taking the risk that your readers' brains will be numb by the time they get to the verb.

Mignon Fogarty

#11. We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice - that is, until we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say, "I lost it.

Sydney J. Harris

#12. I use "perpetrated" because it's the kind of word that passive-voice writers are fond of. They prefer long words of Latin origin to short Anglo-Saxon words - which compounds their trouble and makes their sentences still more glutinous. Short is better than long. Of the 701 words in

William Zinsser

#13. Some of the worst writing around suffers from inert verbs and the unintended use of the passive voice. Yet the passive voice remains an important arrow in the rhetorical quiver. After all, it exists for a reason.

Constance Hale

#14. The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

#15. Live in the active voice, rather than passive. Think more about what you happen than what is happening to you.

William DeWitt Hyde

#16. Delwyth, Bethan, and Eira be their names - I midwifed each one, same year.

Lois Lowry

#17. The simplest and cheapest of all reforms within institutional science is to switch from the passive to the active voice in writing about science.

Rupert Sheldrake

#18. The single problem plaguing all students in all schools everywhere is the crisis of disconnection. Meaningful Student Involvement happens when the roles of students are actively re-aligned from being the passive recipients of schools to becoming active partners throughout the educational process.

Adam Fletcher

#19. The combination of extremist ideology, a warped understanding of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no-one in the international community can accept.

Mark Regev

#20. There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.

Charles Baxter

#21. When someone says something petty or nasty, one of those little passive-aggressive things that would usually just pick at me for days, my new response is not to shut the door and bitch to anyone who will listen. Now? The moment they say it? "What did you mean by that?" I ask in a calm voice. It

Shonda Rhimes

#22. Yogi Bhajan shows us that a key to being the master of your own mind is to learn how to forgive yourself. So for today, just for one minute, practice forgiving yourself.

Gabrielle Bernstein

#23. I'm not going to be somebody who wants to hold on to my fame for the rest of my life.

Shania Twain

#24. In the minds of most men, the kingdom of opinion is divided into three territories,
the territory of yes, the territory of no, and a broad, unexplored middle ground of doubt.

James A. Garfield

#25. I've been able to see the world many times over. The thing I've learned is less is more. I travel as light as possible. I try to carry on.

Chris Harrison

#26. Objectivity is the subject subjugating the object. That is how you assert yourself. You make yourself the active voice and the object is the passive no-voice.

Emily Levine

#27. I have never received a telephone call that justified the excitement and fuss of the electronics involved. If I can't see somebody I love, for instance, such as a daughter, or a son, I would rather receive a letter.

William, Saroyan

#28. Measure your life not by years but by adventures.

Debasish Mridha

#29. Planning my food a bit helps me. Knowing what I'm going to be eating for lunch helps, instead of getting hungry and then looking for something.

Sasha Alexander

#30. I had prepared myself for the second half of my life [to be] filled with other passions that don't include being in front of the camera. And then all of a sudden I got more work and more work and more work. And I went, "Well maybe things have shifted." And I think they have.

Sandra Bullock