Quote

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
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Mount Vernon
New York
Elwyn Brooks White
E.B. White
Simplicity
Beginner
Adornments
Believed
Indicate
Warily
Begin
Beginners
Popularly
Approach
Approaching
Plainness
Style
Sincerity
Orderliness
Realizing
Devices
Resolutely
Away
Turning
Mannerisms
Way
Tricks
Adornment

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Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace.
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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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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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The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
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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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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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I can still see my first dog. For six years he met me at the same place after school and convoyed me home - a service he thought up himself. A boy doesn't forget that sort of association.
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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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When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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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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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Writing is both mask and unveiling.
E. B. White
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The most puzzling thing about TV is the steady advance of the sponsor across the line that has always separated news from promotion, entertainment from merchandising. The advertiser has assumed the role of originator, and the performer has gradually been eased into the role of peddler.
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There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
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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.
E. B. White
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In every queen there's a touch of floozy.
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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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Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.
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A “fraternity” is the antithesis offraternity. The first (that is, the order or organization) is predicated on the idea of exclusion the second (that is, the abstract thing) is based on a feeling of total equality.
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