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Diplomacy is the lowest form of politeness because it misquotes the greatest number of people. A nation, like an individual, if it has anything to say, should simply say it.
E. B. White
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E. B. White
Age: 86 †
Born: 1899
Born: July 11
Died: 1985
Died: October 1
Editor
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Journalist
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Mount Vernon
New York
Elwyn Brooks White
E.B. White
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More quotes by E. B. White
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
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.
E. B. White
Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. White
It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything.
E. B. White
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
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
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
I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.
E. B. White
new york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.
E. B. White
I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.
E. B. White
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
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
All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
E. B. White
If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.
E. B. White
I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else
E. B. White
Have you ever found anything that gives you relief? Yes. A drink.
E. B. White
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
I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles.
E. B. White
Advice from this elderly practitioner is to forget publishers and just roll a sheet of copy paper into your machine and get lost in your subject.
E. B. White
Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.
E. B. White
