Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
E. B. WHITEWhen you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
More E. B. White Quotes
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One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
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All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation-it is the Self-escaping into the open.
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Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
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Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.
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No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
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A right is a responsibility in reverse.
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The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
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I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
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Good deeds never go unpunished.
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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.
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Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
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Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
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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.
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Is there anything in the universe more beautiful and protective than the simple complexity of a spider’s web?
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In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.
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A poet’s pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.
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From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.
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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
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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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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
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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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Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom.
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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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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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All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
E. B. WHITE