The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
E. B. WHITELife’s meaning has always eluded me and I guess always will. But I love it just the same.
More E. B. White Quotes
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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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Old age is a special problem for me because I’ve never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself – a lad of about 19.
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A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can’t get it by breeding for it, and you can’t buy it with money. It just happens along.
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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
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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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The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.
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People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.
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I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.
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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.
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The best writing is rewriting.
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Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.
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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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“What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle–it’s just a web.” “Ever try to spin one?” asked Mr. Dorian.
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A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.
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A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.
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I believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.
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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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Life’s meaning has always eluded me and I guess always will. But I love it just the same.
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You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway?
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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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No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
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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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In every queen there’s a touch of floozy.
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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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You’re terrific as far as I am concerned.
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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.
E. B. WHITE