Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by E. B. White

Image
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.
E. B. White
Image
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.
E. B. White
Image
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
E. B. White
Image
Deathlessness should be arrived at in a... haphazard fashion. Loving fame as much as any man, we shall carve our initials in the shell of a tortoise and turn him loose in a peat bog.
E. B. White
Image
A schoolchild should be taught grammar - for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.
E. B. White
Image
Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp - everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.
E. B. White
Image
The circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything I know in a way, it puts all the rest of show business in the shade.
E. B. White
Image
The vision of milk and honey, it comes and goes. But the odor of cooking goes on forever.
E. B. White
Image
Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. White
Image
America is now liberty-conscious. In a single generation it has progressed from being toothbrush-conscious, to being air-minded, to being liberty-conscious.
E. B. White
Image
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
E. B. White
Image
A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy.
E. B. White
Image
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.
E. B. White
Image
Why is it, do you suppose, that an Englishman is unhappy until he has explained America?
E. B. White
Image
Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
E. B. White
Image
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?
E. B. White
Image
Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
E. B. White
Image
Wilbur didn't want food, he wanted love.
E. B. White
Image
A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning.
E. B. White
Image
Not even a collapsing world looks dark to a man who is about to make his fortune.
E. B. White