E. B. White Quotes - Page 10

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• If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.

  E. B. White

  Smart, Men, People

  1952 Charlotte. Charlotte's Web, ch.10.

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Wings, Bird

  "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk, Jr., E. B. White, (Ch. V), 1972.

  7 Copy quote

• I don't understand it, and I don't like what I don't understand.

  E. B. White

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• Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.

  E. B. White

  Children, Thinking, Parent

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• Not even a collapsing world looks dark to a man who is about to make his fortune.

  E. B. White

  Money, Dark, Men

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• We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. . . . The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witch hunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist.

  E. B. White

  Loyalty, Fighting, Tolerance

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.92, Cornell University Press

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• In dialogue, make sure that your attributives do not awkwardly interrupt a spoken sentence. Place them where the breath would come naturally in speech-that is, where the speaker would pause for emphasis, or take a breath. The best test for locating an attributive is to speak the sentence aloud.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Speech, Tests

  William Strunk Jr., E.B. White (1962). “the Elements of Style”

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• New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up!

  E. B. White

  New York, White, Church

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.156, Cornell University Press

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• The most puzzling thing about TV is the steady advance of the sponsor across the line that has always separated news from promotion, entertainment from merchandising. The advertiser has assumed the role of originator, and the performer has gradually been eased into the role of peddler.

  E. B. White

  Media, Roles, News

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• Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and intent.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Murder, Obscenity

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• I seldom went to bed before two or three o'clock in the morning, on the theory that if anything of interest were to happen to a young man it would almost certainly happen late at night.

  E. B. White

  Morning, Night, Men

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• I believe... that security declines as security machinery expands.

  E. B. White

  Believe, Society, Decline

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• A man must have something to cling to. Without that he is as a pea vine sprawling in search of a trellis.... I was all asprawl, clinging to Beauty, which is a very restless trellis.

  E. B. White

  Wise, Men, Vines

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• My prose style at this time was a stomach-twisting blend of the Bible, Carl Sandburg, H.L. Mencken, Jeffrey Farnol, Christopher Morley, Samuel Pepys, and Franklin Pierce Adams imitating Samuel Pepys. I was quite apt to throw in a "bless the mark" at any spot, and to begin a sentence with "Lord" comma.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Style, Franklin

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• Don Marquis came down after a month on the wagon, ambled over to the bar, and announced, 'I've conquered that goddamn willpower of mine. Gimme a double Scotch.

  E. B. White

  Scotch, Alcohol, Bars

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• The world likes humor, but it treats it patronizingly. It decorates its serious artists with laurel, and its wags with Brussels sprouts.

  E. B. White

  Humor, Artist, World

  E. B. WHITE (1954). “The SECOND TREE from the CORNER”

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• Much of our adult morality, in books and out of them, has a stuffiness unworthy of childhood. Our grown-up conclusions often rest on perilously soft bottom.

  E. B. White

  Book, Childhood, Adults

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• The H-bomb rather favors small nations that doesn't as yet possess it; they feel slightly more free to jostle other nations, having discovered that a country can stick its tongue out quite far these days without provoking war, so horrible are war's consequences.

  E. B. White

  Country, War, Bombs

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• It seemed to me that I should have a desk, even though I had no real need for a desk. I was afraid that if I had no desk in my room my life would seem too haphazard.

  E. B. White

  Real, Order, Should Have

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• In the nature of things, a person engaged in the flimsy business of expressing himself on paper is dependent on the large general privilege of being heard. Any intimation that this privilege may be revoked throws a writer into panic.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Paper, May

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• The complaint about modern steel furniture, modern glass houses, modern red bars and modern streamlined trains and cars is that all these objets modernize, while adequate and amusing in themselves, tend to make the people who use them look dated. It is an honest criticism. The human race has done nothing much about changing its own appearance to conform to the form and texture of its appurtenances.

  E. B. White

  Race, Glasses, Car

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• A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer; he approaches lucid ground warily, like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom on anything solid. A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

  E. B. White

  Poetry, Doe, Veils

  1942 One Man's Meat, 'Poetr y'.

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• To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.

  E. B. White

  Christmas, Years, Difficult

  E. B. WHITE (1954). “The SECOND TREE from the CORNER”

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• It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.

  E. B. White

  Inspirational, Loyalty, Men

  1942 One Man's Meat, 'One Man's Meat'.

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• All we need is a meteorologist who has once been soaked to the skin without ill effect. No one can write knowingly of the weather who walks bent over on wet days.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Weather, Skins

  E. B. White (2014). “Writings from The New Yorker 1925-1976”, p.7, Harper Collins

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