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. WHITEBy 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. WHITEThe whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
E. B. WHITENauseous. 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. WHITEThe world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.
E. B. WHITE“What are they, and where are you?” screamed Wilbur. “Please, please, tell me where you are. And what are salutations?” “Salutations are greetings,” said the voice. “When I say ‘salutations,’ it’s just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning.
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. WHITEGeese 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.
E. B. WHITESemi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
E. B. WHITEI don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.
E. B. WHITEExtreme cold when it first arrives seems to generate cheerfulness and sociability. For a few hours all life’s dubious problems are dropped in favor of the clear and congenial task of keeping alive.
E. B. WHITEA 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. WHITEThe whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.
E. B. WHITEIn a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.
E. B. WHITEThere is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
E. B. WHITENo one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
E. B. WHITEWriting is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.
E. B. WHITE