A despot doesn’t fear eloquent writers preaching freedom- he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.
E. B. WHITE“What are they, and where are you?” screamed Wilbur. “Please, please, tell me where you are. And what are salutations?” “Salutations are greetings,” said the voice. “When I say ‘salutations,’ it’s just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning.
More E. B. White Quotes
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Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
E. B. WHITE -
Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.
E. B. WHITE -
Extreme cold when it first arrives seems to generate cheerfulness and sociability. For a few hours all life’s dubious problems are dropped in favor of the clear and congenial task of keeping alive.
E. B. WHITE -
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.
E. B. WHITE -
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
E. B. WHITE -
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter.
E. B. WHITE -
Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
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Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening.
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Good deeds never go unpunished.
E. B. WHITE -
Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
E. B. WHITE -
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
E. B. WHITE -
I have noticed that most men when they enter a barber shop and must wait their turn, drop into a chair and pick up a magazine. I simply sit down and pick up the thread of my sea wanderings, which began more than fifty years ago and is not quite ended.
E. B. WHITE -
Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.
E. B. WHITE -
All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
E. B. WHITE -
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.
E. B. WHITE