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New York is part of the natural world. I love the city, I love the country, and for the same reasons. The city is part of the country. When I had an apartment on East Forty-Eighth Street, my backyard during the migratory season yielded more birds than I ever saw in Maine.

E. B. White

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E. B. White
Age: 86 †
Born: 1899
Born: July 11
Died: 1985
Died: October 1
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Elwyn Brooks White
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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.
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There is a period near the beginning of every man's life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dream, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place.
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The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.
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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.
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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
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As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left us in a bad time.
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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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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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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.
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Einstein is loved because he is gentle, respected because he is wise. Relativity being not for most of us, we elevate its author to a position somewhere between Edison, who gave us a tangible gleam, and God, who gave us the difficult dark and the hope of penetrating it.
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Why is it, do you suppose, that an Englishman is unhappy until he has explained America?
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Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.
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It isn't silence you can cut with a knife any more, it's interchange of ideas. Intelligent discussion of practically everything is what is breaking up modern marriage.
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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 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.
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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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A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy.
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A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning.
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I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn't know where else to go.
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