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Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening.

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
People
Well
Happenings
Nothing
Happening
Much
Gift
Something
Humanity
Make
State
Good
Peace
Think
States
Overtake
Thinking
Wells
Serenity

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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.
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I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.
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In a man's middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.
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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.
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A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning.
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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
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Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.
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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.
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No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
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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.
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By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is unconfortable and inconvenient but New Yorkers tempramentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere.
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Wilbur burst into tears. I dont want to die, he moaned. I want to stay alive, right here in my comfortable manure pile with all my friends. I want to breathe the beautiful air and lie in the beautiful sun.
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In order to read one must sit down, usually indoors. I am restless and would rather sail a boat than crack a book. I've never had a very lively literary curiosity, and it has sometimes seemed to me that I am not really a literary fellow at all. Except that I write for a living.
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Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.
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If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.
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Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.
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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 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.
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Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
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New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute.
E. B. White