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The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style - all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.

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
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Mount Vernon
New York
Elwyn Brooks White
E.B. White
Approach
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Sincerity
Orderliness
Devices
Resolutely
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Turning
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Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north...As he peeked ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.
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Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.
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There is another sort of day which needs celebrating in song -- the day of days when spring at last holds up her face to be kissed, deliberate and unabashed. On that day no wind blows either in the hills or in the mind.
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Not even a collapsing world looks dark to a man who is about to make his fortune.
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Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.
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A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.
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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays
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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
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Good deeds never go unpunished.
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English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.
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Life's accumulation is more discouraging than life itself, when stirred up.
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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.
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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.
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Even now with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
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Television will enormously enlarge the eye's range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote.
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Humour plays close to the big, hot fire, which is the truth, and the reader feels the heat.
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When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.
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Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
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I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
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When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
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