Skip to content

If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.

— John McPhee Basin and Range (1981)

Another quote →

Topics

Writing

More quotes by John McPhee

In making war with nature, there was risk of loss in winning.

The Control of Nature (1989)

Almost all Americans would recognize Anchorage, because Anchorage is that part of any city where the city has burst its seams and extruded Colonel Sanders.

Coming into the Country (1976)

All John McPhee quotes →

You may also like

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John McPhee (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.