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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
Problem
Lad
Able
Shed
Never
Birthday
Mental
Image
Comedy
Special
Age
Youthfulness

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Wilbur burst into tears. I dont want to die, he moaned. I want to stay alive, right here in my comfortable manure pile with all my friends. I want to breathe the beautiful air and lie in the beautiful sun.
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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.
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You're terrific as far as I am concerned.
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I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.
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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?
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It sometimes takes days, even weeks, before a dog's nerves tire. In the case of terriers it can run into months.
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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.
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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.
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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
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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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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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The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
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As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly and unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost.
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A right is a responsibility in reverse.
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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays
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A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can't get it by breeding for it, and you can't buy it with money. It just happens along.
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A writer should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
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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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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.
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