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I have always felt that the first duty of a writer was to ascend - to make flights, carrying others along if you can manage it. To do this takes courage, even a certain conceit.

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
Always
Felt
Carrying
Others
Flight
Certain
Manage
Firsts
Along
First
Courage
Writing
Duty
Ascend
Even
Writer
Flights
Make
Takes
Conceit

More quotes by E. B. White

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Don't write about Man write about a man.
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The siren south is well enough, but New York, at the beginning of March, is a hoyden we would not care to miss--a drafty wench, her temperature up and down, full of bold promises and dust in the eye.
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There is a period near the beginning of every man's life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dream, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place.
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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
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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
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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.
E. B. White
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Books are the door of escape from the forest.
E. B. White
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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.
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Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.
E. B. White
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Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.
E. B. White
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I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
E. B. White
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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
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A writer should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
E. B. White
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Never hurry and never worry!
E. B. White
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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.
E. B. White
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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
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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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Writing is both mask and unveiling.
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Humour plays close to the big, hot fire, which is the truth, and the reader feels the heat.
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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