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Humor is like a frog. You can dissect it to see how it works, but by then, it's dead.

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
Frog
Frogs
Works
Humor
Dead
Like
Dissect

More quotes by E. B. White

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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.
E. B. White
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I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.
E. B. White
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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.
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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
E. B. White
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Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.
E. B. 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.
E. B. White
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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.
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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The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.
E. B. White
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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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A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
E. B. White
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Life is always rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
E. B. White
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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.
E. B. White
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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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Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.
E. B. White
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Geese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.
E. B. White
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I have a spaniel that defrocked a nun last week. He took hold of the cord. I had hold of the leash. It was like elephants holding tails. Imagine me undressing a nun, even second hand.
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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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
E. B. White
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Diplomacy is the lowest form of politeness because it misquotes the greatest number of people. A nation, like an individual, if it has anything to say, should simply say it.
E. B. White