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A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist - nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix things up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.

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
Men
Written
Letter
Nudist
Time
White
Skin
Presentable
World
Away
Skins
Publishes
Nothing
Stuck
Nudists
Writing
Letters
Shields
Make
Except
Gaze
Always
Writer
Bare
Things
Becomes
Publish

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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.
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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.
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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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A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.
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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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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
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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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In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.
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Don't write about Man write about a man.
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All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
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A right is a responsibility in reverse.
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Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp - everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.
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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.
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Home was quite a place when people stayed there.
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A writer should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
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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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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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In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone.
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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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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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