410 Quotes by E.B. White

It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation’s pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

Use the smallest word that does the job.

I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn’t know where else to go.

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down.

It sometimes takes days, even weeks, before a dog’s nerves tire. In the case of terriers it can run into months.

Extreme cold when it first arrives seems to generate cheerfulness and sociability. For a few hours all life’s dubious problems are dropped in favor of the clear and congenial task of keeping alive.