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. WHITEThe 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.
More E. B. White Quotes
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There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
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Geese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.
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No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
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Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.
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I’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty-everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?
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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
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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.
E. B. WHITE -
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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Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together-just the two of you.
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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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Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can’t erase it.
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When I get sick of what men do, I have only to walk a few steps in another direction to see what spiders do. Or what the weather does. This sustains me very well indeed.
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A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.
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When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.
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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
E. B. WHITE