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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
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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
Originals
Original
Quality
Half
Improvements
Process
Devoted
Lost
Calls
Men
Life
Improvement
More quotes by E. B. White
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
A writer should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
E. B. White
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
From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.
E. B. White
Life's accumulation is more discouraging than life itself, when stirred up.
E. B. White
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
Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
E. B. White
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.
E. B. White
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
... with men it's rush, rush, rush, every minute. I'm glad I'm a sedentary spider. What does sedentary mean? asked Wilbur. Means I sit still a good part of the time and don't go wandering all over creation. I know a good thing when I see it, and my web is a good thing. I stay put and wait for what comes. Gives me a chance to think.
E. B. White
As in the sexual experience, there are never more than two persons present in the act of reading-the writer, who is the impregnator, and the reader, who is the resspondent. This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication.
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 would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
E. B. White
Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
E. B. White
You have been my friends. That in itself is a tremendous thing.
E. B. White
When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
E. B. White
The world likes humor, but it treats it patronizingly. It decorates its serious artists with laurel, and its wags with Brussels sprouts.
E. B. White
Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
E. B. White
The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.
E. B. White
Even now with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
E. B. White
