Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. WHITEUse the smallest word that does the job.
More E. B. White Quotes
-
-
Nauseous. Nauseated. The first means “sickening to contemplate”; the second means “sick at the stomach.” Do not, therefore, say “I feel nauseous,” unless you are sure you have that effect on others.
E. B. WHITE -
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 -
Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom.
E. B. WHITE -
The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
E. B. WHITE -
People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.
E. B. WHITE -
The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
E. B. WHITE -
The whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.
E. B. WHITE -
A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.
E. B. WHITE -
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 -
Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening.
E. B. WHITE -
“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.
E. B. WHITE -
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society – things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
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 -
Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
E. B. WHITE -
Use the smallest word that does the job.
E. B. WHITE