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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.

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
Age
Knockouts
Use
Sneeze
Fall
Spoiling
Back
Technical
Human
Aging
Humans
Apart
Even
Excuse
Life
Middle
Knockout

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I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.
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Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.
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Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.
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Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.
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Life is always rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
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I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.
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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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Our vegetable garden is coming along well, with radishes and beans up, and we are less worried about revolution that we used to be.
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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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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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