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Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.

E. B. White

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E. B. White
Age: 86 †
Born: 1899
Born: July 11
Died: 1985
Died: October 1
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Mount Vernon
New York
Elwyn Brooks White
E.B. White
Age
Youthfulness
Problem
Lad
Able
Shed
Never
Birthday
Mental
Image
Comedy
Special

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I have just been refining the room in which I sit, yet I sometimes doubt that a writer should refine or improve his workroom by so much as a dictionary: one thing leads to another and the first thing you know he has a stuffed chair and is fast asleep in it.
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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.
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As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left us in a bad time.
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Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
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In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.
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Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north...As he peeked ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.
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America is now liberty-conscious. In a single generation it has progressed from being toothbrush-conscious, to being air-minded, to being liberty-conscious.
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In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone.
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Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.
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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.
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The vision of milk and honey, it comes and goes. But the odor of cooking goes on forever.
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By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
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When a man hangs from a tree it doesn't spell justice unless he helped write the law that hanged him.
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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
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Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.
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Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
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Don't write about Man write about a man.
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Home was quite a place when people stayed there.
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A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.
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