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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

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
Well
Good
Prefer
Safety
Freedom
Wells

More quotes by E. B. White

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Books are the door of escape from the forest.
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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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Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.
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We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. . . . The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witch hunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist.
E. B. White
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Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.
E. B. White
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It is at a fair that man can be drunk forever on liquor, love, or fights at a fair that your front pocket can be picked by a trotting horse looking for sugar, and your hind pocket by a thief looking for his fortune.
E. B. White
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Not even a collapsing world looks dark to a man who is about to make his fortune.
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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When my wife's Aunt Caroline was in her nineties, she lived with us, and she once remarked: 'Remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen.' I cherish the remembrance of the beauty I have seen. I cherish the grave, compulsive word.
E. B. White
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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.
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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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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A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can't get it by breeding for it, and you can't buy it with money. It just happens along.
E. B. White
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Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.
E. B. White
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Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.
E. B. White
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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.
E. B. White
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I seldom went to bed before two or three o'clock in the morning, on the theory that if anything of interest were to happen to a young man it would almost certainly happen late at night.
E. B. White
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You're terrific as far as I am concerned.
E. B. White
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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.
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