Quotes by Ernie Pyle

About Ernie Pyle:

Ernest Taylor Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize–winning American journalist. As a roving correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, he earned wide acclaim for his accounts of ordinary people in rural America, and later, of ordinary American soldiers during World War II. His syndicated column ran in more than 300 newspapers nationwide.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

If you go long enough without a bath, even the fleas will leave you alone.

Ernie Pyle

I was away from the front lines for a while this spring, living with other troops, and considerable fighting took place while I was gone. When I got ready to return to my old friends at the front I wondered if I would sense any change in them.

Ernie Pyle

I've been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has become too great.

Ernie Pyle

At last we are in it up to our necks, and everything is changed, even your outlook on life.

Ernie Pyle

But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.

Ernie Pyle

About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over. The motors seemed to grind rather than roar, and to have an angry pulsation like a bee buzzing in blind fury.

Ernie Pyle

Below us the Thames grew lighter, and all around below were the shadows - the dark shadows of buildings and bridges that formed the base of this dreadful masterpiece.

Ernie Pyle

I've really been sick with this cold, but I think I might have kept the columns going anyhow except I was just so low in spirit, I didn't have the will to struggle against them when my deadline was so close and I felt so lousy.

Ernie Pyle

In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.

Ernie Pyle

It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.

Ernie Pyle

Swinging first and swinging to kill is all that matters now.

Ernie Pyle

The American soldier is quick in adapting himself to a new mode of living. Outfits which have been here only three days have dug vast networks of ditches three feet deep in the bare brown earth. They have rigged up a light here and there with a stora...

Ernie Pyle

The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valor only to break out again later.

Ernie Pyle

There are no atheists in the foxhole.

Ernie Pyle

Dead men by mass production––in one country after another––month after month and year after year. Dead men in winter and dead men in summer. Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous. Dead men in such monstrous infinit...

Ernie Pyle

It's alright to have a good opinion of yourself, but we Americans are so smug with our cockiness, we somehow feel that just because we are Americans, we can whip our weight in wildcats.

Ernie Pyle

Our artillery has really been sensational. For once we have enough of something and at the right time. Officers tell me they actually have more guns than they know what to do with.

Ernie Pyle

Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges.

Ernie Pyle

War makes strange giant creatures out of us little routine men who inhabit the earth.

Ernie Pyle

The men are walking. They are fifty feet apart, for dispersal. Their walk is slow, for they are dead weary, as you can tell even when looking at them from behind. Every line and sag of their bodies speaks their inhuman exhaustion.

Ernie Pyle

Author Bio

  • NameErnie Pyle
  • DescriptionWorld War II war correspondent and writer
  • BornAugust 3, 1900
  • DiedApril 18, 1945
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist
  • AwardsPurple Heart; Pulitzer Prize For Correspondence