E. B. White Quotes - Page 10

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There is another sort of day which needs celebrating in song -- the day of days when spring at last holds up her face to be kissed, deliberate and unabashed. On that day no wind blows either in the hills or in the mind.

E. B. White

Song, Spring, Blow

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Einstein is loved because he is gentle, respected because he is wise. Relativity being not for most of us, we elevate its author to a position somewhere between Edison, who gave us a tangible gleam, and God, who gave us the difficult dark and the hope of penetrating it.

E. B. White

Wise, Dark, Gleam

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A shaft of sunlight at the end of a dark afternoon, a note of music, and the way the back of a baby’s neck smells if it’s mother keeps it tidy,” answered Henry. “Correct,” said Stuart. “Those are the important things. You forgot one thing, though. Mary Bendix, what did Henry Rackmeyer forget?” “He forgot ice cream with chocolate sauce on it,” said Mary quickly.

E. B. White

Mother, Baby, Dark

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Every American, to the last man, lays claim to a "sense" of humor and guards it as his most significant spiritual trait, yet rejects humor as a contaminating element wherever found. America is a nation of comics and comedians; nevertheless, humor has no stature and is accepted only after the death of the perpetrator.

E. B. White

Funny, Spiritual, Men

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The siren south is well enough, but New York, at the beginning of March, is a hoyden we would not care to miss--a drafty wench, her temperature up and down, full of bold promises and dust in the eye.

E. B. White

New York, Eye, Dust

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Of course, it may be that the arts of writing and photography are antithetical. The hope and aim of a word-handler is that he maycommunicate a thought or an impression to his reader without the reader's realizing that he has been dragged through a series of hazardous or grotesque syntactical situations. In photography the goal seems to be to prove beyond a doubt that the cameraman, in his great moment of creation, was either hanging by his heels from the rafters or was wedged under the floor with his lens in a knothole.

E. B. White

Photography, Art, Writing

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New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute.

E. B. White

New York, Community, Events

E.B. White (2011). “Here is New York”, p.22, New York Review of Books

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The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. Because I have the greatest respect for the reader, and if he's going to the trouble of reading what I've written -- I'm a slow reader myself and I guess most people are -- why, the least I can do is make it as easy as possible for him to find out what I'm trying to say, trying to get at. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

E. B. White

Reading, Writing, People

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"Have you ever found anything that gives you relief?" "Yes. A drink."

E. B. White

Giving, Relief, Drink

"The Second Tree From The Corner".

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Government is the thing. Law is the thing. Not brotherhood, not international cooperation, not security councils that can stop war only by waging it... Where does security lie, anyway - security against the thief, a bad man, the murderer? In brotherly love? Not at all. It lies in government.

E. B. White

War, Lying, Men

Common Cause: A Monthly Report of the Committee to Frame a World Constitution, Vol. I, No. 2, August 1947.

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The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition. (Written in 1949, 22 years before the World Trade Center was completed.)

E. B. White

New York, Islands, Years

Here Is New York (1949)

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The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.

E. B. White

Peace, Father, War

1954 The Second Tree from the Corner, 'The Second Tree from the Corner'.

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The only sense that is common in the long run, is the sense of change and we all instinctively avoid it.

E. B. White

Change, Running, Long

E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.85, Cornell University Press

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The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.

E. B. White

Fall, Play, Saws

E. B. White (1989). “The Letters of E. B. White”, Perennial

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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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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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Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind? Who knows why certain notes in music are capable of stirring the listener deeply, though the same notes slightly rearranged are impotent? These are high mysteries, and this chapter is a mystery story, thinly disguised.

E. B. White

Mind, Stories, Mystery

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

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Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.

E. B. White

Fall, Writing, Knives

E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.159, Cornell University Press

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Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.

E. B. White

Television, Should, Camelot

E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.194, Cornell University Press

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As in the sexual experience, there are never more than two persons present in the act of reading-the writer, who is the impregnator, and the reader, who is the resspondent. This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication.

E. B. White

Communication, Reading, Two

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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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When snow accumulates week after week, month after month, it works curious miracles.

E. B. White

Snow, Miracle, Months

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I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles.

E. B. White

Pigs, Roles, Chance

E. B. White (2014). “Essays of E. B. White”, p.20, Harper Collins

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Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.

E. B. White

Men, Quality, Half

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I have no warm up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink.

E. B. White

Writing, Exercise, Drink

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Born: July 11, 1899
Died: October 1, 1985
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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