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Top 20 Benjamin Dreyer Quotes (2025 Update)

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Sixteenth century Flemish painter. The Matthew McConaughey of his era as no one can ever quite remember how to spell his name.”

1. “Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Sixteenth century Flemish painter. The Matthew McConaughey of his era as no one can ever quite remember how to spell his name.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “It’s like endlessly working on one of those spot-the-difference picture puzzles in an especially satanic issue of Highlights for Children.”

2. “It’s like endlessly working on one of those spot-the-difference picture puzzles in an especially satanic issue of Highlights for Children.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “Only godless savages eschew the series comma. No sentence has ever been harmed by a series comma, and many a sentence has been improved by one.”

3. “Only godless savages eschew the series comma. No sentence has ever been harmed by a series comma, and many a sentence has been improved by one.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “If there’s a less classy word in the English language to describe classiness than “classy,” I’d like to know what it is.”

4. “If there’s a less classy word in the English language to describe classiness than “classy,” I’d like to know what it is.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “A lot can be accomplished in the conveyance of eccentricity of speech with word choice and word order. Make good use of those.”

5. “A lot can be accomplished in the conveyance of eccentricity of speech with word choice and word order. Make good use of those.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “Only godless savages eschew the series comma.”

6. “Only godless savages eschew the series comma.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “The things I like best in T. S. Eliot’s poetry, especially in the Four Quartets, are the semicolons. You cannot hear them, but they are there, laying out the connections between the images and the ideas. Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath.”

7. “The things I like best in T. S. Eliot’s poetry, especially in the Four Quartets, are the semicolons. You cannot hear them, but they are there, laying out the connections between the images and the ideas. Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “I think perhaps you don’t finish writing a book. You stop writing it.”

8. “I think perhaps you don’t finish writing a book. You stop writing it.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “Or to advertent comic effect, if you’re Groucho Marx: “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”

9. “Or to advertent comic effect, if you’re Groucho Marx: “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “People who are in the business of hating the relatively new-fashioned use of “begs the question” hate it vehemently, and they hate it loudly. Unfortunately, subbing in “raises the question” or “inspires the query” or any number of other phrasings fools no one; one can always detect the deleted “begs the question,” a kind of prose pentimento, for those of you who were paying attention in art history class or have read Lillian Hellman’s thrilling if dubiously accurate memoir.”

10. “People who are in the business of hating the relatively new-fashioned use of “begs the question” hate it vehemently, and they hate it loudly. Unfortunately, subbing in “raises the question” or “inspires the query” or any number of other phrasings fools no one; one can always detect the deleted “begs the question,” a kind of prose pentimento, for those of you who were paying attention in art history class or have read Lillian Hellman’s thrilling if dubiously accurate memoir.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “Reading fiction aloud highlights strengths and exposes weaknesses. I heartily recommend it.”

11. “Reading fiction aloud highlights strengths and exposes weaknesses. I heartily recommend it.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “I know that back when you were in seventh-grade typing class and pecking away at your Smith Corona Coronet Automatic 12, Mrs. Tegnell taught you to type a double space after a sentence-ending period, but you are no longer in the seventh grade, you are no longer typing on a typewriter, and Mrs. Tegnell is no longer looking over your shoulder.”

12. “I know that back when you were in seventh-grade typing class and pecking away at your Smith Corona Coronet Automatic 12, Mrs. Tegnell taught you to type a double space after a sentence-ending period, but you are no longer in the seventh grade, you are no longer typing on a typewriter, and Mrs. Tegnell is no longer looking over your shoulder.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “Footnote pop quiz: Why, then, would I hyphenate the likes of “scholarly-looking teenagers” or “lovely-smelling flowers”? Because not all “-ly” words are adverbs. Sometimes they’re adjectives. Really, I’m sorry.”

13. “Footnote pop quiz: Why, then, would I hyphenate the likes of “scholarly-looking teenagers” or “lovely-smelling flowers”? Because not all “-ly” words are adverbs. Sometimes they’re adjectives. Really, I’m sorry.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “If you want your best-seller to be a bestseller, you have to help make that happen. If you want to play videogames rather than video games, go for it. I hope that makes you feel powerful. It should.”

14. “If you want your best-seller to be a bestseller, you have to help make that happen. If you want to play videogames rather than video games, go for it. I hope that makes you feel powerful. It should.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “LAGUARDIA AIRPORT Hellhole.”

15. “LAGUARDIA AIRPORT Hellhole.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “The English alphabet is comprised of twenty-six letters.” Cue the sirens, because here come the grammar cops. Use plain “comprise” to mean “made up of” and you’re on safe ground. But as soon as you’re about to attach the word “of” to the word “comprise,” raise your hands to the sky and edit yourself. Once you’ve lowered your hands.”

16. “The English alphabet is comprised of twenty-six letters.” Cue the sirens, because here come the grammar cops. Use plain “comprise” to mean “made up of” and you’re on safe ground. But as soon as you’re about to attach the word “of” to the word “comprise,” raise your hands to the sky and edit yourself. Once you’ve lowered your hands.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “BASED OFF OF No. Just no. “An intentional tremor, with prepositions,” as a friend described it. The inarguably – so don’t argue with me – correct phrase is “based on.”

17. “BASED OFF OF No. Just no. “An intentional tremor, with prepositions,” as a friend described it. The inarguably – so don’t argue with me – correct phrase is “based on.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “As a lexicographer friend once confided over sushi, the dictionary takes its cues from use: If writers don’t change things, the dictionary doesn’t change things.”

18. “As a lexicographer friend once confided over sushi, the dictionary takes its cues from use: If writers don’t change things, the dictionary doesn’t change things.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “And that’s often the problem, isn’t it? In writing and in so many things: that we accept things we’re taught without thinking about them at all.”

19. “And that’s often the problem, isn’t it? In writing and in so many things: that we accept things we’re taught without thinking about them at all.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “I suppose I might just say “If it starts with a capital letter, look it up” and end this chapter right here, but where would be the fun in that?”

20. “I suppose I might just say “If it starts with a capital letter, look it up” and end this chapter right here, but where would be the fun in that?”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “But who could possibly read such a sentence and think such a thing? And that’s often the problem, isn’t it? In writing and in so many things: that we accept things we’re taught without thinking about them at all.”

21. “But who could possibly read such a sentence and think such a thing? And that’s often the problem, isn’t it? In writing and in so many things: that we accept things we’re taught without thinking about them at all.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “A good sentence, I find myself saying frequently, is one that the reader can follow from beginning to end, no matter how long it is, without having to double back in confusion because the writer misused or omitted a key piece of punctuation, chose a vague or misleading pronoun, or in some other way engaged in inadvertent misdirection.”

22. “A good sentence, I find myself saying frequently, is one that the reader can follow from beginning to end, no matter how long it is, without having to double back in confusion because the writer misused or omitted a key piece of punctuation, chose a vague or misleading pronoun, or in some other way engaged in inadvertent misdirection.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “Neither will we discuss the interrobang, because we’re all civilized adults here.”

23. “Neither will we discuss the interrobang, because we’re all civilized adults here.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

Benjamin Dreyer Quote: “You’re attempting to burrow into the brains of your writers and do for, to, and with their prose what they themselves might have done for, to, and with it had they not already looked at each damn sentence 657 times.”

24. “You’re attempting to burrow into the brains of your writers and do for, to, and with their prose what they themselves might have done for, to, and with it had they not already looked at each damn sentence 657 times.”

— Benjamin Dreyer

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