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.
E. B. WHITEMother: It’s broccoli, dear. — Child: I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.
More E. B. White Quotes
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You can dissect a joke just as you can a frog. But it tends to die on you.
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Geese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.
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You’re terrific as far as I am concerned.
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From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.
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In every queen there’s a touch of floozy.
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No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
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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.
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A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. … A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
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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.
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Make the work interesting and the discipline will take care of itself.
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And then, just as Wilbur was settling down for his morning nap, he heard again the thin voice that had addressed him the night before. “Salutations!” said the voice. Wilbur jumped to his feet. “Salu-what?” he cried. “Salutations!” repeated the voice.
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A right is a responsibility in reverse.
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To achieve style, begin by affecting none.
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Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.
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Mother: It’s broccoli, dear. — Child: I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.
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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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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
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A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.
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Loneliness is a strange gift.
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A schoolchild should be taught grammar-for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy.
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If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.
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It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck.
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There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
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Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north…As he peeked ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.
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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.
E. B. WHITE