In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.
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.
More E. B. White Quotes
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A writer’s style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias…it is the Self escaping into the open.
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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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Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote.
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There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter.
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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.
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Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
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All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
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I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
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Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.
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“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.
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I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.
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Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
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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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Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
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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.
E. B. WHITE