Quote

Don't write about Man write about a man.

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
Write
Writing
Men

More quotes by E. B. White

Image
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.
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
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.
E. B. White
Image
I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.
E. B. White
Image
I believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.
E. B. White
Image
New York is part of the natural world. I love the city, I love the country, and for the same reasons. The city is part of the country. When I had an apartment on East Forty-Eighth Street, my backyard during the migratory season yielded more birds than I ever saw in Maine.
E. B. White
Image
A right is a responsibility in reverse.
E. B. White
Image
Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
E. B. White
Image
A “fraternity” is the antithesis offraternity. The first (that is, the order or organization) is predicated on the idea of exclusion the second (that is, the abstract thing) is based on a feeling of total equality.
E. B. White
Image
Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. White
Image
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. ... A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false lively, not dull accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
E. B. White
Image
new york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.
E. B. White
Image
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
E. B. White
Image
As in the sexual experience, there are never more than two persons present in the act of reading-the writer, who is the impregnator, and the reader, who is the resspondent. This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication.
E. B. White
Image
It is at a fair that man can be drunk forever on liquor, love, or fights at a fair that your front pocket can be picked by a trotting horse looking for sugar, and your hind pocket by a thief looking for his fortune.
E. B. White
Image
You're terrific as far as I am concerned.
E. B. White
Image
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.
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
In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.
E. B. White
Image
I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.
E. B. White