410 Quotes by E.B. White

What do you mean, less than nothing?” replied Wilbur. “I don’t think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It’s the lowest you can go. It’s the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something – even though it’s just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.

Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.

English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education – sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.

I always write a thing first and think about it afterward, which is not a bad procedure because the easiest way to have consequential thoughts is to start putting them down.

Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom.

This week, many will be reminded that no explosion of atoms generates so hopeful a light as the reflection of a star, seen appreciatively in a pasture pond.

Life’s accumulation is more discouraging than life itself, when stirred up.

I have occasionally had the exquisite thrill of putting my finger on a little capsule of truth, and heard it give the faint squeak of mortality under my pressure.

By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.