I discovered a long time ago that writing of the small things of the day, the trivial matters of the heart, the… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
As in the sexual experience, there are never more than two persons present in the act of reading-the writer, who is the… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy. — E. B. White Copy Share Image
The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs;… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one. — E. B. White Copy Share Image
The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. Because I have the greatest respect for the… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
There is simply a better chance of doing well if the writer holds a steady course, enters the stream of English quietly,… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life. — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Of course, it may be that the arts of writing and photography are antithetical. The hope and aim of a word-handler is… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
I always write a thing first and think about it afterward, which is not a bad procedure because the easiest way to… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
In dialogue, make sure that your attributives do not awkwardly interrupt a spoken sentence. Place them where the breath would come naturally… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
When you consider that there are a thousand ways to express even the simplest idea, it is no wonder writers are under… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
My prose style at this time was a stomach-twisting blend of the Bible, Carl Sandburg, H.L. Mencken, Jeffrey Farnol, Christopher Morley, Samuel… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Advice from this elderly practitioner is to forget publishers and just roll a sheet of copy paper into your machine and get… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. — E. B. White Copy Share Image
There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
In the nature of things, a person engaged in the flimsy business of expressing himself on paper is dependent on the large… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
“I find it very disturbing to be advertised, as I have noticed that it is the advertised authors that stink. I am… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
In order to read one must sit down, usually indoors. I am restless and would rather sail a boat than crack a… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes. — E. B. White Copy Share Image
A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist - nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin. A… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
“To hear, in the short space of one week, a Scottish terrier booed by an audience and President Roosevelt criticized by Charles Lindbergh was… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
The terror of the atom age is not the violence of the new power but the speed of man's adjustment to it, the speed… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
When my wife's Aunt Caroline was in her nineties, she lived with us, and she once remarked: 'Remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. — E. B. White Copy Share Image
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. ... A writer has the duty to… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
I seldom went to bed before two or three o'clock in the morning, on the theory that if anything of interest were to happen… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma. — E. B. White Copy Share Image
