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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.

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
Men
Small
Charged
Though
Items
Lost
Worldly
Felt
Secretary
Might
Unexpected
Writing
Personally
Safekeeping
Even
Held
Unworldly
Always
Responsible
Enchantment

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I can still see my first dog. For six years he met me at the same place after school and convoyed me home - a service he thought up himself. A boy doesn't forget that sort of association.
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I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else
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Don't write about Man write about a man.
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Even now with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
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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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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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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.
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... with men it's rush, rush, rush, every minute. I'm glad I'm a sedentary spider. What does sedentary mean? asked Wilbur. Means I sit still a good part of the time and don't go wandering all over creation. I know a good thing when I see it, and my web is a good thing. I stay put and wait for what comes. Gives me a chance to think.
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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
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A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.
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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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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays
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Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
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Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.
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It seemed to me that I should have a desk, even though I had no real need for a desk. I was afraid that if I had no desk in my room my life would seem too haphazard.
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Have you ever found anything that gives you relief? Yes. A drink.
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You have been my friends. That in itself is a tremendous thing.
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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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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.
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Humor is like a frog. You can dissect it to see how it works, but by then, it's dead.
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