We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.
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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Use the smallest word that does the job.
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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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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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Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp – everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.
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Mother: It’s broccoli, dear. — Child: I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.
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If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.
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An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
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Writing is both mask and unveiling.
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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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It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck.
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Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
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Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
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It is Sunday, mid-morning-Sunday in the living room, Sunday in the kitchen, Sunday in the woodshed, Sunday down the road in the village: I hear the bells, calling me to share God’s grace.
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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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Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.
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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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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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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.
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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.
E. B. WHITE