A right is a responsibility in reverse.
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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Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.
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Writing is both mask and unveiling.
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Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
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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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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays
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The whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.
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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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“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.
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Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.
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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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It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck.
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The best writing is rewriting.
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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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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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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.
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I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn’t know where else to go.
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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
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Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.
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I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
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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.
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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
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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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Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
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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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Nauseous. 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.
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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.
E. B. WHITE