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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

The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation’s pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.
E. B. WHITE

Called Mere Necromancy Poll Science Talking
Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. WHITE

Freedom Oood Prefer Safety Well
All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
E. B. WHITE

All Hope Book Love World
The best writing is rewriting.
E. B. WHITE

Best Rewriting Write
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
Salutations; it’s just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning
E. B. WHITE

Fancy Good Morning Hello Just Say Solution Way
Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.
E. B. WHITE

Anything Background Children Game Hand Net Over Them Throw Word
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
Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.
E. B. WHITE

Awake Born Desire Every Inclination Morning Save Savor World
Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.
E. B. WHITE

Clearly Obscure Tongue Understand Way Wild
I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.
E. B. WHITE

Admire All Anybody Anything Gut Want Write
I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn’t know where else to go.
E. B. WHITE

Else Encourage Go Know Still Where
A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.
E. B. WHITE

Good Handy Humus Less More Nothing Sense Than Time
Loneliness is a strange gift.
E. B. WHITE

Gift Loneliness Strange
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.
E. B. WHITE

Become Comb Consider Country Family Few Hour Pajama Separate Toothbrush
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
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
People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.
E. B. WHITE

Anything Being More People Thought Touchy Unjust
When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
E. B. WHITE

Chance Far Have Make Only Say Something Sure
Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp – everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.
E. B. WHITE

Around Barn Bird Day Early Everywhere Field House Jubilee Summer Swamp Time Wood
You’re terrific as far as I am concerned.
E. B. WHITE

Concerned Far Terrific
We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.
E. B. WHITE

Even Give Grape Laundry Long Only Pick Run Sort Us
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
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
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

Bad Happen Happening Most Much Nothing Peace People State Think
It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck.
E. B. WHITE

Deal Depend Destroy Fulfill Individual Luck
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.
E. B. WHITE

Another Direction Do Get Men Only Sick Spider Step Walk

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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