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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

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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
Fashion
Carve
Turn
Initials
Shall
Shell
Turns
Arrived
Peat
Death
Shells
Bogs
Much
Loose
Tortoise
Men
Loving
Tortoises
Fame
Haphazard

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Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.
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Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
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Have you ever found anything that gives you relief? Yes. A drink.
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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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The world likes humor, but it treats it patronizingly. It decorates its serious artists with laurel, and its wags with Brussels sprouts.
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Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
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Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
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Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.
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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
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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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Not even a collapsing world looks dark to a man who is about to make his fortune.
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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.
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Life's accumulation is more discouraging than life itself, when stirred up.
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The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
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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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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.
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Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north...As he peeked ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.
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Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace.
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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
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There is another sort of day which needs celebrating in song -- the day of days when spring at last holds up her face to be kissed, deliberate and unabashed. On that day no wind blows either in the hills or in the mind.
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