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English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.

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
Language
Across
Sometimes
Communication
Like
Mere
Usage
Judgment
Sheer
Taste
Crafts
Streets
English
Education
Street
Getting
Luck

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There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.
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Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.
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From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think of what it was like to be alive.
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The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.
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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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Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
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Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
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Good deeds never go unpunished.
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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.
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I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else
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Life is always rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
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Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
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The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people.
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Wilbur didn't want food, he wanted love.
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Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
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Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.
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Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.
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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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The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay
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It isn't silence you can cut with a knife any more, it's interchange of ideas. Intelligent discussion of practically everything is what is breaking up modern marriage.
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