E B White Quotes

“The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?"
E. B. White "On A Florida Key”
― E. B. White

“All I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.”
― E.B. White

“Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.”
― William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style

“Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.”
― E.B. White

“To confront death, in any guise, is to identify with the victim and face what is unsettling and sobering”
― E.B. White

“His face looked shrewd and wise, as if he knew many things, many of them not worth knowing.”
― E.B. White The Trumpet of the Swan

“The use of language begins with imitation. The infant imitates the sounds made by its
parents; the child imitates first the spoken language, then the stuff of books. The imitative life continues long after the writer is secure in the language, for it is almost impossible to avoid imitating what one admires. Never imitate consciously, but do not worry about being an imitator; take pains instead to admire what is good. Then when you write in a way that comes naturally, you will echo the halloos that bear repeating.”
― E. B. White