Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom.
E. B. WHITEWriting is both mask and unveiling.
More E. B. White Quotes
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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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By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.
E. B. WHITE -
A right is a responsibility in reverse.
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A schoolchild should be taught grammar-for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy.
E. B. WHITE -
The best writing is rewriting.
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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. WHITE -
Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one’s belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.
E. B. WHITE -
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.
E. B. WHITE -
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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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?
E. B. WHITE -
In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.
E. B. WHITE -
Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can’t erase it.
E. B. WHITE -
I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
E. B. WHITE -
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 -
Make the work interesting and the discipline will take care of itself.
E. B. WHITE






