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My prose style at this time was a stomach-twisting blend of the Bible, Carl Sandburg, H.L. Mencken, Jeffrey Farnol, Christopher Morley, Samuel Pepys, and Franklin Pierce Adams imitating Samuel Pepys. I was quite apt to throw in a bless the mark at any spot, and to begin a sentence with Lord comma.

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
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Mount Vernon
New York
Elwyn Brooks White
E.B. White
Begin
Prose
Samuel
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Stomach
Adams
Quite
Bless
Imitating
Morley
Lord
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Jeffrey
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Pierce
Comma
Time
Throw
Franklin
Twisting
Bible
Spot
Carl
Mark
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Christopher

More quotes by E. B. White

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But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm... in the middle of the web there were the words 'Some Pig'... we have no ordinary pig. Well, said Mrs. Zuckerman, it seems to me you're a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.
E. B. White
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No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
E. B. White
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The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything
E. B. White
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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays
E. B. White
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In every queen there's a touch of floozy.
E. B. White
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Even now with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
E. B. White
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Why is it, do you suppose, that an Englishman is unhappy until he has explained America?
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 poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer he approaches lucid ground warily, like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom on anything solid. A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
E. B. White
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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.
E. B. White
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A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy.
E. B. White
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We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.
E. B. White
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Books are the door of escape from the forest.
E. B. White
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Writing is both mask and unveiling.
E. B. White
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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
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Don't write about Man write about a man.
E. B. White
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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.
E. B. White
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The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
E. B. White
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Home was quite a place when people stayed there.
E. B. White
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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.
E. B. White