Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976 Quotes

“A schoolchild should be taught grammar--for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“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, and although you can take a nation's blood pressure, you can't be sure that if you came back in twenty minutes you'd get the same reading. This is a damn fine thing.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“It is best to have a strong curiosity, weak affiliations.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“Early next morning the craft hit the beach again and resumed loading pulpwood. It was an awesome sight, this tentacle of empire reaching out into so remote and quiet a spot; and it was a fearsome sound, the throbbing engines of an old, dead war furnishing the paper for new conquests in the magazine field.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“A distinguishing political feature of America is that it has never had a voice; it has had a lot of hoopdedoo but no voice, and that’s the way we like it.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“In a sense, the only genuinely secure person is a healthy man possessed of absolutely nothing; such a man stands aloof and safe—there is no way either to reduce his fortune or to debase his currency.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“The voices of radio and television are the voices of quick-change artists; they move rapidly from selling to telling and back to selling again. They are losing their sharpness because they have divided their allegiance.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“Henry was torn all his days between two awful pulls—the gnawing desire to change life, and the equally troublesome desire to live it.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“Some of the best writings of writers, it seems to us, were done before they actually thought of themselves as engaged in producing literature. Some of the best humor of humorists was produced before ever they heard the distant laughter of their multitudes.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976

“ANYTHING LIKE THAT 11/26/32 A YOUNG LADY, born in Russia, confided to us that she was about to become an American citizen, and would we be her witness, for she needed someone to testify to her good character and good intentions. Greatly touched, we dressed in a semiformal manner and accompanied her to a sort of barn over on the North River. Here we were tossed about from one United States naturalization clerk to another United States naturalization clerk, and eventually wound up before a bench, an American flag, and a grim, chilly examiner. After a few routine questions, the man suddenly speeded up his voice and inquired: “Do you believe in Communism, anarchism, polygamy—or anything like that?” And before we could pry into the phrase “anything like that”—which we felt it our duty to do—our young friend had blithely answered no, and it was all over. She is now an American citizen, a very pretty one, sworn never to believe in Anything Like That.”
― E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976