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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

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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
Real
Afraid
Needs
Room
Even
Seem
Would
Rooms
Life
Though
Haphazard
Order
Desk
Seems
Desks
Need
Seemed

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A schoolchild should be taught grammar - for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.
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A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there in a book, you may have your question answered
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As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly and unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost.
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In every queen there's a touch of floozy.
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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.
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I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision, we shall discover a new and unbearable disturbance of the modern peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television - of that I am quite sure.
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Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.
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The vision of milk and honey, it comes and goes. But the odor of cooking goes on forever.
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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.
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Home was quite a place when people stayed there.
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I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else
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From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think of what it was like to be alive.
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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
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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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It sometimes takes days, even weeks, before a dog's nerves tire. In the case of terriers it can run into months.
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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.
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Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.
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I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn't know where else to go.
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Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.
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I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles.
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