In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.
E. B. WHITECreation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
More E. B. White Quotes
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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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One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
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A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.
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Mother: It’s broccoli, dear. — Child: I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.
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A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. … A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
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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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A schoolchild should be taught grammar-for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy.
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It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn’t catch the remark because I wasn’t paying attention.
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The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
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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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Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
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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.
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From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.
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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