Quote

Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

E. B. White

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Merely
Shapes
Writers
Writing
Life
Inform
Interpret
Reflect
Shape

More quotes by E. B. White

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Humour plays close to the big, hot fire, which is the truth, and the reader feels the heat.
E. B. White
Image
There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
E. B. White
Image
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
Image
I can still see my first dog. For six years he met me at the same place after school and convoyed me home - a service he thought up himself. A boy doesn't forget that sort of association.
E. B. White
Image
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
Image
Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
E. B. White
Image
Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
E. B. White
Image
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
Image
Even now with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
E. B. White
Image
If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.
E. B. White
Image
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
Image
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E. B. White
Image
A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can't get it by breeding for it, and you can't buy it with money. It just happens along.
E. B. White
Image
I have a spaniel that defrocked a nun last week. He took hold of the cord. I had hold of the leash. It was like elephants holding tails. Imagine me undressing a nun, even second hand.
E. B. White
Image
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
Image
I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else
E. B. White
Image
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.
E. B. White
Image
A right is a responsibility in reverse.
E. B. White