E.B. White Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by E.B. White
E.B. White Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from E.B. White on Wise Famous Quotes.
The city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines.
I haven't told why I wrote the book, but I haven't told you why I sneeze, either. A book is a sneeze.
When a man hangs from a tree it doesn't spell justice unless he helped write the law that hanged him.
If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.
Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.
Is there anything in the universe more beautiful and protective than the simple complexity of a spider's web?
Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.
Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.
The only sense that is common in the long run, is the sense of change and we all instinctively avoid it.
A writer's style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias ... it is the Self escaping into the open.
It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention.
I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.
Commuter - one who spends his life In riding to and from his wife; A man who shaves and takes a train And then rides back to shave again.
The world likes humor, but it treats it patronizingly. It decorates its serious artists with laurel, and its wags with Brussels sprouts.
It is by all odds the loftiest of cities. It even managed to reach the highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the depression.
There is simply a better chance of doing well if the writer holds a steady course, enters the stream of English quietly, and does not thrash about.
Dentistry is more impressive in town-what the rural man calls cleaning the teeth is called "prophylaxis" in New York.
This was your mother's door. She was loyal, brilliant, beautiful, and she was my friend. I will treasure her memory forever.
A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer ... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.
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.
I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema, there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles.
Very fine law," said Stuart. "When I am Chairman, anybody who is mean to anybody else is going to catch it.
Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.
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.
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
Even now; with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
The sky," he wrote on his slate, "is my living room. The woods are my parlor. The lonely lake is my bath. I can't remain behind a fence all my life.
The theme of 'Charlotte's Web' is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect.
An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.
In a man's middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.
I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.
It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.
The circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything I know; in a way, it puts all the rest of show business in the shade.
Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and intent.
It sometimes takes days, even weeks, before a dog's nerves tire. In the case of terriers it can run into months.
Some of the published news was distorted, but distortion is inherent in partisan journalism, the same as it is in political rallies.
English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.