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. WHITEWe’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.
More E. B. White Quotes
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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
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When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
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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
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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
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Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
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Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.
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I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
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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.
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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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I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
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People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.
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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
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Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
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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.
E. B. WHITE