A writer’s style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias…it is the Self escaping into the open.
E. B. WHITEThere is hardly a waiting room in the east that has not served as my cockpit, whether I was waiting to board a train or to see a dentist. And I am usually still trimming sheets when the train starts or drill begins to whine.
More E. B. White Quotes
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Salutations; it’s just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning
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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.
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Use the smallest word that does the job.
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A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer… He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
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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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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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English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education – sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.
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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.
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Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
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You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway?
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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
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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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Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.
E. B. WHITE