Comma Inside Quotes

It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus— that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying with our entire curved and silenced selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that are being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?

Having played to her heart's content, Chibi would come inside and rest for a while. When she began to sleep on the sofa--like a talisman curled gently in the shape of a comma and dug up from a prehistoric archaeological site--a deep sense of happiness arrived, as if the house itself had dreamed this scene.

I was the type who looked at discussions of What Is Truth only with a view toward correcting the manuscript. If you were to quote "I am that I am," for example, I thought that the fundamental problem was where to put the comma, inside the quotation marks or outside.

How do you end a story that’s not yours? Add another sentence where there is a pause? Infiltrate the story with a comma when really there should have been a period? Punctuate with an exclamation point where a period would have sufficed? What if you kill something breathing and breathe life into something the author wanted to eliminate? How do you get inside the mind of a person who isn’t there? Fill the shoes of someone who will never again fill his own?

But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work, taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject them for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn’t poking up—unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out.

In the United States, periods and commas go inside the quotation mark. In Britain, they go outside the quotation mark. Squiggly said, “No.” (United States) Squiggly said, “No”. (Britain)   “No,” said Squiggly. (United States) “No”, said Squiggly. (Britain)

It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus—that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more.

It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus--that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more.

It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus—that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication.

It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus—that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves more, more, more. I want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?

It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus—that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?

As soon as I saw the bookshelves through the store windows, I felt lighter. Just thinking about the smell inside. Paper, compressed nature, and hands making words, a must of knowing and magic. Periods. Commas. Digressions. Analogies. The beauty of everyday thought turned poetry. It was all there, and I was hit with a little sliver of peace in the chaos of my brain.

We copy editors sometimes get a reputation for wanting to redirect the flow, change the course of the missile, have our way with a piece of prose. The image of the copy editor is of someone who favors a rigid consistency, a mean person who enjoys pointing out other people's errors, a lowly person who is just starting out on her career in publishing and is eager to make an impression, or, at worst, a bitter, thwarted person who wanted to be a writer and instead got stuck dotting the i's and crossing the t's and otherwise advancing the careers of other writers. I suppose I have been all of these. But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work ,taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject the for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up—unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out.

Not sure I’m comfortable with something like this living inside my wife’s body.” Vaughn turns around to me now with the chart in his hand, tapping a pink blob the shape of a comma. “Not sure you have much choice.” I grin, sitting back on the bed. “Besides, if you think that’s odd, it’s about to get a hell of a lot weirder.

[...] And Faust knows that he will not speak of it, and if so only by a comma, only by a word in a big new book. It is really something like a coat of grey fur over the soul, like the uniform the unknown soldier wears inside him. And so he goes and starts a painting, or a gay little song, or a big new book. Nothing has happened but we always saw if coming All in all India ink is the blood's first sister and song is just as final as life and death and equally without allegory, without transcendence and without fuss.

The most obvious way of reading the verse is: Enter inside, O My servants, and you have entered My garden. But many mystics, including Rumi, read the same verse differently. In reading it, as it were, without a comma, they arrive at a radically different, and more powerful, reading: Enter inside My servants, and you have entered My garden.

My shirt said, I like cooking my family and pets. Use commas. Don’t be a psycho. The sweatshirt was black with white lettering. The last line was italicized and the psycho was done in blood-red creepy-looking lettering. “Of course.” I knew perfectly well what it said. When I put the sweatshirt on earlier, Marshell burst out laughing. “How did I miss this sick sense of humor you have?” “Who has a sick sense of humor?” Heller came up behind Lawson and rested his chin on Lawson’s shoulder, looking at my shirt. “Good one, Remi.” “Can we please discuss Remi’s sick sense of humor and his style choices inside? In case nobody noticed, it’s snowing. I hate the snow,

I was the type who looked at discussions of What Is Truth only with a view toward correcting the manuscript. If you were to quote “I am that I am,” for example, I thought that the fundamental problem was where to put the comma, inside the quotation marks or outside.