E. B. White Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

  E. B. White

  Inspiring, Faith, Writing

  William Strunk Jr., E.B. White (1962). “the Elements of Style”

  14 Copy quote

• But real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination.

  E. B. White

  Real, Imagination, Kind

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.211, Cornell University Press

  7 Copy quote

• People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

  E. B. White

  Motivational, Silly, People

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.131, Cornell University Press

  11 Copy quote

• Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

  E. B. White

  Funny, Senior, Witty

  58 Copy quote

• It's hard to know when to respond to the seductiveness of the world and when to respond to its challenge. If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

  E. B. White

  Morning, Seductive, Challenges

  58 Copy quote

• Never hurry and never worry!

  E. B. White

  Worry

  E. B. White (1989). “The Letters of E. B. White”, Perennial

  6 Copy quote

• There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Track, Scary

  10 Copy quote

• Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.

  E. B. White

  Change, Dark, Clouds

  Letter to M. Nadeau, March 30, 1973.

  20 Copy quote

• I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.

  E. B. White

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

  20 Copy quote

• I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Admiration, Admire

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.209, Cornell University Press

  28 Copy quote

• I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.

  E. B. White

  Blue, Shadow, Barns

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.62, Cornell University Press

  46 Copy quote

• A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. ... A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Heart, Errors

  7 Copy quote

• Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

  E. B. White

  Freedom, Democracies Have, White

  New Yorker, 3 July 1943

  35 Copy quote

• When you consider that there are a thousand ways to express even the simplest idea, it is no wonder writers are under a great strain. Writers care greatly how a thing is said - it makes all the difference. So they are constantly faced with too many choices and must make too many decisions.

  E. B. White

  Ideas, Differences, Choices

  "Writers at Work". Interview with George Plimpton, Frank Crowther in Paris Review, 1969.

  5 Copy quote

• A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can't get it by breeding for it, and you can't buy it with money. It just happens along.

  E. B. White

  Dog, Silly, Canine

  19 Copy quote

• Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

  E. B. White

  College, Prove, Has Beens

  10 Copy quote

• Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.

  E. B. White

  People, Creative, Lucky

  6 Copy quote

• You're terrific as far as I am concerned.

  E. B. White

  Concerned, Terrific

  "Fictional character: Charlotte". "Charlotte's Web", www.imdb.com. 1973.

  8 Copy quote

• There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.

  E. B. White

  Pessimistic, Limits, Complicated

  9 Copy quote

• To achieve style, begin by affecting none.

  E. B. White

  Style, Achieve

  7 Copy quote

• A writer's style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias...it is the Self escaping into the open.

  E. B. White

  Escaping, Self, Style

  8 Copy quote

• Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.

  E. B. White

  Pigs, Trying, Bed

  E. B. White (2015). “Charlotte's Web”, p.5, HarperCollins

  23 Copy quote

• I get up every morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult.

  E. B. White

  Success, Morning, Determination

  8 Copy quote

• No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

  E. B. White

  Attitude, Writing, Reader

  William Strunk Jr., E.B. White (1962). “the Elements of Style”

  12 Copy quote

• Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.

  E. B. White

  Distraction, Creation

  E.B. White (2011). “Here is New York”, p.25, New York Review of Books

  24 Copy quote

Page 3 of 13

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin