E. B. White Quotes

The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of free...

Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the ...

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on ...

The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is em...

You have been my friend... And that in itself is a tremendous thing.

Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.

I’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, sche...

After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.

I'm really too young to go out into the world alone," he thought as he lay down

New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance...

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be...

...Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t...

New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspi...

A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragem...

Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it.

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,In spider’s web a truth discerning,Attach one silken strand to you...

Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time.

It was a delicious meal -- skim milk, wheat middlings, leftover pancakes, half a doughnut, the rind ...

new york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.

I'm really too young to go out into the world alone," he thought as he lay down.

The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all...

I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a peopl...

Walden is the report of a man torn by two powerful and opposing drives – the desire to enjoy the wor...

The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the inter...

Writing is both mask and unveiling.

The city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds ...

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

Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the proce...

As everyone knows, there is often a rather fine line between laughing and crying

The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent k...

Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the...

I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to ...

To confront death, in any guise, is to identify with the victim and face what is unsettling and sobe...

All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Child...

A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove ...

Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.

The best writing is rewriting.

This is what youth must figure out:Girls, love, and living.The having, the not having,The spending a...

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. T...

When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond...

A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.

I liked to sail alone. The sea was the same as a girl to me - I did not want anyone else along.

A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer he approaches lucid ground warily like a mariner w...

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields there in dal...

Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man wr...

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness natives give it solidity and continuity but the set...

I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart 'til it stops beating."

Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.

Humour plays close to the big hot fire which is the truth and the reader feels the heat.

The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.

Humour can be dissected as a frog can but the thing dies in the process.

Be obscure clearly.

There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.

Summertime oh summertime pattern of life indelible the fade-proof lake the woods unshatterable ...

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

Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of ...

To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

If the world were merely seductive that would be easy. If it were merely challenging that would be...

His words leap across rivers and mountains but his thoughts are still only six inches long.

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

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

Reading is the work of the alert mind is demanding and under ideal conditions produces finally a s...

Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sens...

The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

Commuter - One who spends his life in riding to and from his wife a man who shaves and takes a trai...

A schoolchild should be taught grammar--for the same reason that a medical student should study anat...

The world is full of talkers, but it is rare to find anyone who listens. And I assure you that you c...

Besides, my life is a catastrophe. It's a catastrophe to be without a voice.

Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

Tonight I heard Louis's horn. My father heard it, too. The wind was right, and I could hear the note...

Every night, before he turned in, he would write in the book. He wrote about things he had done, thi...

To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year. "The Distant Musi...

I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!" (William Strunk) ... Why compound ignorance...

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make o...

When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hour...

There is nothing so expensive, really, as a big, well-developed, full-bodied preconception.

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' '...

There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are...

One of the most interesting accomplishments of the film community, it seems to me, is that it has ma...

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can...

I have seldom met an individual of literary tastes or propensities in whom the writing of love was n...

Just the minute another person is drawn into some one's life, there begin to arise undreamed-of comp...

By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorke...

It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should co...

At this season of the year, darkness is a more insistent thing than cold. The days are short as any ...

They just keep trotting back and forth across the bridge thinking there is something better on the o...

We take to the breeze, we go as we please.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.