By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.
--
In a letter to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Hiney, Tom; Frank MacShane (2000). The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. p. 77. ISBN 0871137860.Raymond Chandler
» Raymond Chandler - all quotes »
There is nothing finer in the world than the telling of tales. Split atoms if you wish, but splitting an infinitive—and getting away with it—is far nobler. Lance boils if you wish, but pricking pretensions is often cleaner and always more fun.
Greg Bear
I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.
P. G. Wodehouse
The guy was dead as hell. He lay on the floor in his pajamas with his brains scattered all over the rug and my gun was in his hand. I kept rubbing my face to wipe out the fuzz that clouded my mind but the cops wouldn't let me. One would pull my hand away and shout a question at me that made my head ache even worse and another would slap me with a wet rag until I felt like I had been split wide open.
Mickey Spillane
[Regarding the split of Siouxsie & the Banshees in 1995, the 2002 reunion tour, and the split again in 2003] It suddenly seemed a good idea to perform songs that we hadn't played for 20 years," explains Siouxsie. "And for a while it was fun. Me and Severin actually seemed to be getting on again. I say seemed. Obviously now I can't stand the sight of the poisonous old toad.
Siouxsie Sioux
Like all real treasures of the mind, perception can be split into infinitely small fractions without losing its quality. The weeds in a city lot convey the same lesson as the redwoods; the farmer may see in his cow-pasture what may not be vouchsafed to the scientist adventuring in the South Seas.
Aldo Leopold
Chandler, Raymond
Chandra, Ami
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