The rules of punctuation seem arbitrary. How can they not, when an apostrophe looks like nothing in this world so much as a comma that can’t keep its feet on the ground? Or when, by simply placing next to that wafting comma its twin, one creates (of all things) a quotation mark? – Richard Lederer and John Shore, Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation

A semicomma, we should note, doesn’t exist; we just made the word up. But it sounds like a punctuation mark that should exist, doesn’t it? – Richard Lederer and John Shore, Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation

Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know about grammar is its infinite power. – Joan Didion, “Why I Write,” 1976

[S]ometimes… quotation marks are an absolute crime against humanity. – Richard Lederer and John Shore, Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation