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When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.

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
Sure
Chance
Something
Make
Chances
Fairs
Fair

More quotes by E. B. White

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Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
E. B. White
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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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All poets who, when reading from their own works,m experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not.
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I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn't know where else to go.
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.
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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.
E. B. White
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Humour plays close to the big, hot fire, which is the truth, and the reader feels the heat.
E. B. White
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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.
E. B. White
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From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think of what it was like to be alive.
E. B. White
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Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
E. B. White
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America is now liberty-conscious. In a single generation it has progressed from being toothbrush-conscious, to being air-minded, to being liberty-conscious.
E. B. White
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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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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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The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay
E. B. White
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A right is a responsibility in reverse.
E. B. White
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Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.
E. B. White
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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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The vision of milk and honey, it comes and goes. But the odor of cooking goes on forever.
E. B. White
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Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people-- people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
E. B. White
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Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
E. B. White