You can dissect a joke just as you can a frog. But it tends to die on you.
E. B. WHITEAll writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation-it is the Self-escaping into the open.
More E. B. White Quotes
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It is Sunday, mid-morning-Sunday in the living room, Sunday in the kitchen, Sunday in the woodshed, Sunday down the road in the village: I hear the bells, calling me to share God’s grace.
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I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.
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Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote.
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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.
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Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society – things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
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Nauseous. Nauseated. The first means “sickening to contemplate”; the second means “sick at the stomach.” Do not, therefore, say “I feel nauseous,” unless you are sure you have that effect on others.
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We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.
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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays
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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
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Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can’t erase it.
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The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
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I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.
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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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Oh, I never look under the hood.
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Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.
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In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.
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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.
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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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Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They’ll believe anything they see in print.
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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.
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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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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
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I get up every morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult.
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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.
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Use the smallest word that does the job.
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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. WHITE