The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.
E. B. WHITEIf a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.
More E. B. White Quotes
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When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
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I believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.
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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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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
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I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.
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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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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
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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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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
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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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A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer… He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
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The whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.
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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.
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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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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