100 Mind-Blowing Quotes By E.B. White

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.

You Never

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I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

I

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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

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All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

Love Hope Books I

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After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.

Life

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Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.

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I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

Nature Future Time I

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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.

Will

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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

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I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

Change Time I

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One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.

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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

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Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.

Me Believe

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Never hurry and never worry!

Never

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I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

Heart I

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Writing is both mask and unveiling.

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Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.

You Like

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The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.

Never

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Be obscure clearly.

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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

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I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.

I

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I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.

I

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A writer's style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias...it is the Self escaping into the open.

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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular.

I

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Don't write about Man; write about a man.

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There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.

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It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention.

Me I

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Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.

Think Will Children

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Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.

Trying

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You're terrific as far as I am concerned.

I

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Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.

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Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.

Young

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Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it.

You Life Past Like

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Wilbur didn't want food, he wanted love.

Love

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In every queen there's a touch of floozy.

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The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.

War Time

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Too many things on my mind, said Wilbur. Well, said the goose, that's not my trouble. I have nothing at all on my mind, but I've too many things under my behind.

I

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A mistake is simply another way of doing things.

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To achieve style, begin by affecting none.

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I don't understand it, and I don't like what I don't understand.

Like I

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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

I

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If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.

I

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The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.

Young

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Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

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If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!" (William Strunk) ... Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?

You

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I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

I

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It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.

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You have been my friend," replied Charlotte, "That in itself is a tremendous thing.

You

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We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or doing laundry.

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In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone.

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The best writing is rewriting.

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I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

I

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But real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination.

Life

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The city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines.

Life Like Music

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

Like

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Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.

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Meetings bore me.

Me

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Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Time

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When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.

Family

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Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.

Like

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Have you ever found anything that gives you relief?"... "Yes. A drink

You

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Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.

You Life Time

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I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else

I

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Most people believe almost anything they see in print.

Believe

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A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole, and a carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for the reader, the object of the writer's enthusiasm.

Power

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An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.

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Good things come to those who find it and shove it in their mouth!

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I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.

I

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Once in everyone's life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half-asleep.

Life

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Everything in life is somewhere else and you get there in a car.

You Life

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New york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.

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On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.... No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

Will

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Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.

You Time

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Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people-- people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

Books

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The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep.

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It is by all odds the loftiest of cities. It even managed to reach the highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the depression.

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Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.

Yourself

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A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

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A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom-he fears a drunken poet may crack a joke that will take hold.

Will Fear

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The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything

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It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

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Very fine law,” said Stuart. “When I am Chairman, anybody who is mean to anybody else is going to catch it.

I

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I am working on a new book about a boa constrictor and a litter of hyenas. The boa constrictor swallows the babies one by one, and the mother hyena dies laughing.

I

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

Life

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Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken strand to you For my returning.

I

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To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year. "The Distant Music of the Hounds," 1954

Music

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By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience- if they did they would live elsewhere.

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I remember what it is like to be in love before any of love’s complexities or realities or disturbances has entered in, to dilute its splendor and challenge its perfection.

Love Like I

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I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.

I

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I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.

I

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Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.

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The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.

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He was sad because his new friend was so bloodthirsty.

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(Not every doctor can look into a mouse's ear without laughing)

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I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema, there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles.

I

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She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writers. Charlotte was both.

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As everyone knows, there is often a rather fine line between laughing and crying

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[Writers] should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.

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New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up

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When your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it’s always hard to sleep.

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