Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.
E. B. White
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Family
Pajamas
Considers
Separated
Adventure
Becomes
Quite
Hours
Toothbrushes
American
Combs
More quotes by E. B. White
Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
E. B. White
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
E. B. White
The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style - all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.
E. B. White
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
There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
E. B. White
Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.
E. B. White
In every queen there's a touch of floozy.
E. B. White
I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
E. B. White
All poets who, when reading from their own works,m experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not.
E. B. White
A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.
E. B. White
New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up!
E. B. White
English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.
E. B. White
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.
E. B. White
If sometimes there seems to be a sort of sameness of sound in The New Yorker, it probably can be traced to the magazine's copydesk, which is a marvelous fortress of grammatical exactitude and stylish convention.
E. B. White
You have been my friends. That in itself is a tremendous thing.
E. B. White
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.
E. B. White
From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think of what it was like to be alive.
E. B. White
The essayist . . . can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or his subject matter - philosopher, scold, jester, raconteur, confidant, pundit, devil's advocate, enthusiast.
E. B. White
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.
E. B. White
In a man's middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.
E. B. White
