E.B. White Quotes

E.B. White Quotes

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But 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.

All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

Writing is both mask and unveiling.

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.

The best writing is rewriting.

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.

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.

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.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.

After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.

When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.

This is what youth must figure out:
Girls, love, and living.
The having, the not having,
The spending and giving,
And the meloncholy time of not knowing.

This is what age must learn about:
The ABC of dying.
The going, yet not going,
The loving and leaving,
And the unbearable knowing and knowing

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.

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.

Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it.

Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.

...all his thoughts were of how lucky he was to inhabit such a beautiful earth, how lucky he had been to solve his problems with music, and how pleasant it was to look forward to another night of sleep and another day tomorrow, and the fresh morning, and the light that returns with the day.

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.

I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively, instead of skeptically and dictatorially.

I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

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.

Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

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.

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?

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!" (William Strunk) ... Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?

The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep.

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