E. B. White Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• 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.

  E. B. White

  Adventure, Pajamas, Hours

  13 Copy quote

• Good deeds never go unpunished.

  E. B. White

  Deeds, Good Deeds

  8 Copy quote

• A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.

  E. B. White

  Art, Space, Add

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

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  E. B. White

  Children, True Friend, Life Changing

  Charlotte'sWeb ch. 22 (1952)

  56 Copy quote

• Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Thinking, Practice

  William Strunk, Jr., E. B. White (1972). “The Elements of Style”

  6 Copy quote

• Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.

  E. B. White

  Pigs, Trying, Bed

  E. B. White (2015). “Charlotte's Web”, p.5, HarperCollins

  23 Copy quote

• A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.

  E. B. White

  Suicide, Suicidal, Presidential

  8 Copy quote

• No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

  E. B. White

  Attitude, Writing, Reader

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

  13 Copy quote

• Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.

  E. B. White

  Distraction, Creation

  E.B. White (2011). “Here is New York”, p.25, New York Review of Books

  24 Copy quote

• It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention.

  E. B. White

  Animal, Attention, Charlotte's Web

  21 Copy quote

• When my wife's Aunt Caroline was in her nineties, she lived with us, and she once remarked: 'Remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen.' I cherish the remembrance of the beauty I have seen. I cherish the grave, compulsive word.

  E. B. White

  Inspiring, Aunt, Wife

  8 Copy quote

• People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

  E. B. White

  Motivational, Silly, People

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.131, Cornell University Press

  11 Copy quote

• A schoolchild should be taught grammar—for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy.

  E. B. White

  Taught, Students, Medical

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.120, Cornell University Press

  7 Copy quote

• Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one's belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.

  E. B. White

  Two, Self, Strange

  7 Copy quote

• Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening.

  E. B. White

  Peace, Thinking, People

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.161, Cornell University Press

  10 Copy quote

• Diplomacy is the lowest form of politeness because it misquotes the greatest number of people. A nation, like an individual, if it has anything to say, should simply say it.

  E. B. White

  Numbers, People, Courtesy

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.93, Cornell University Press

  5 Copy quote

• It is Sunday, mid-morning-Sunday in the living room, Sunday in the kitchen, Sunday in the woodshed, Sunday down the road in the village: I hear the bells, calling me to share God's grace.

  E. B. White

  Morning, Sunday, Grace

  6 Copy quote

• In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.

  E. B. White

  Country, Attention, Pay

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.139, Cornell University Press

  5 Copy quote

• When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.

  E. B. White

  Chance, Said, Fairs

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

  4 Copy quote

• Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

  E. B. White

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.56, Cornell University Press

  16 Copy quote

• An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Editors, Desire

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

  11 Copy quote

• If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.

  E. B. White

  Men, Sailing, Nautical

  7 Copy quote

• Liberals are like dogs: The liberal holds that he is true to the republic when he is true to himself. (It may not be as cozy an attitude as it sounds.) He greets with enthusiasm the fact of the journey, as a dog greets a man's invitation to take a walk. And he acts in the dog's way too, swinging wide, racing ahead, doubling back, covering many miles of territory that the man never traverses, all in the spirit of inquiry and the zest for truth. He leaves a crazy trail, but he ranges far beyond the genteel old party he walks with and he is usually in a better position to discover a skunk.

  E. B. White

  Dog, Attitude, Crazy

  9 Copy quote

• Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

  E. B. White

  Hard Work, Writing, Hard

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  E. B. White

  Eye, Together, Television

  "Removal". Essay by E. B. White (July 1938), published in his book "One Man's Meat", 1942.

  5 Copy quote

Page 4 of 13

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin