E. B. White Quotes

Words are the basic tools, if you are a writer. But why? Why do you choose one set of tools rather than another?

They're just words is all. Powerless. Vocabulary. Dialogue.

If people want to be better writers, they can't just read the blogs! You've got to look at something that's outside this rushing world of evanescent words.

The words of the world want to make sentences.

In seventh and eighth grade, grammar and vocabulary were not my favorite subjects.

I taught high school English for 24 years. I always teach my students to appreciate the beauty of language and to write poetically.

I was a terrible English student.

I excelled in English while I was at school.

I was also in love with the English language.

You wouldn't believe the kind of hate mail I get about my work on irregular verbs.

I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days.

Read, read, read. Read good books. You will strengthen your understanding of story. Your vocabulary will be the richer for it.

Mostly, I would like people to ask other writers about the craft of their writing so we could learn from one another. We ask movie directors why they chose to use certain lights and angles and speeds of film, but most of the time, we ignore the craft of a writer.

I spend a lot of my time just looking at words and grammar and writing things down that I don't know.

Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?

The test of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the other person talking as one reads, it is a good letter.

When I heard the word ''stream'' uttered with such a revolting primness, what I think of is urine and not the contemporary novel. And besides, it isn't new, it is far from the dernier cri. Shakespeare used it continually, much too much in my opinion, and there's Tristam Shandy, not to mention the "Agamemnon."

There is a reason there is no such thing as a folk writer. But to be a writer you have learn what it takes to captivate a reader in order to make them turn the page. And in order to learn that, you have to read.

All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.

We must use words as they are used, or stand aside from life.

I am convinced more and more day by day that fine writing is next to fine doing, the top thing in the world.

When language is used without true significance, it loses its purpose as a means of communication and becomes an end in itself.

The more words you have at your disposal, the more precisely you can express yourself.

Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.