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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

E. B. White

There is hardly a waiting room in the east that has not served as my cockpit, whether I was waiting to board a train or to see a dentist. And I am usually still trimming sheets when the train starts or drill begins to whine.
E. B. WHITE

Begin Cockpit Start Train Trim Usually Wait
In every queen there’s a touch of floozy.
E. B. WHITE

Every Queen Floozy Touch
The city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.
E. B. WHITE

City Country Day Each Locust Person Something Somewhere
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

Friend Itself Like Tremendous Web Wove
Good deeds never go unpunished.
E. B. WHITE

Ded Go Good never Unpunished
We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. 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

Anyone Born Eating Heaven Help Little Perhaps Something
Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
E. B. WHITE

Luck Made Men Mention Presence Self Something
The best writing is rewriting.
E. B. WHITE

Best Rewriting Write
If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.
E. B. WHITE

Anything Beter Good Man Most Obsessed Perhaps Something Suppose
Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can’t erase it.
E. B. WHITE

Cros Erase Life Like Pen Put Writing
Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.
E. B. WHITE

Abomination Country Everyone Misspeklled People Person Sight Well
Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.
E. B. WHITE

Clearly Obscure Tongue Understand Way Wild
I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they
E. B. WHITE

Amd Lose Mad Nothing Often Think Winter
A schoolchild should be taught grammar-for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy.
E. B. WHITE

Anatomy Grammar Medical Reason Same Schoolchild Student Study Taught
There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer’s time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer’s time isn’t worth the paper he is not writing anything on.
E. B. WHITE

Estimate Harder Keep Nothing Of Time Track
An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.
E. B. WHITE

Desire Editor Escape More Person Terrible Write Writer
Life’s meaning has always eluded me and I guess always will. But I love it just the same.
E. B. WHITE

Always Eluded Let Love Make Same
Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people– people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
E. B. WHITE

Alive Book Company Good Hiding Manage People Sad Stay Times
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
E. B. WHITE

Attitude Decently Distrustful Intelligence Patronizing Reader Write
Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They’ll believe anything they see in print.
E. B. WHITE

Belief Country Gullible People Person Print See Trust
I believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.
E. B. WHITE

Believe Dream Faith People Poet Sing Song
I have noticed that most men when they enter a barber shop and must wait their turn, drop into a chair and pick up a magazine. I simply sit down and pick up the thread of my sea wanderings, which began more than fifty years ago and is not quite ended.
E. B. WHITE

Barber Chair Drop Enter Magazine Men Most Notice Pick Shop Wait
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

Charm Condition Desirable Devotees Fatal Local Nationalism Prepossess Self Sufficiency Two
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
E. B. WHITE

Compunction Conscience Consideration Decency Kindness Milk Moral Rat Rodent Scruples
There’s no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.
E. B. WHITE

Account Another Complicated Lead Limit Thing
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
E. B. WHITE

Along Come Fiend Good Someone True Writer
A right is a responsibility in reverse.
E. B. WHITE

Responsibility Reverse Right

Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

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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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