Writing Quotes by E. B. White

The best writing is rewriting.

— E. B. White

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

— E. B. White

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

— E. B. White

Write about it by day and dream about it by night.

— E. B. White

Use the smallest word that does the job.

— E. B. White

The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of…

— E. B. White

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

When a man hangs from a tree it doesn't spell justice unless he helped write the law that hanged him.

— E. B. White

Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

— E. B. White

A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy.

— E. B. White

Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

— E. B. White

Writing is not an exercise in excision, it's a journey into sound.

— E. B. White

I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.

— E. B. White

I have always felt that the first duty of a writer was to ascend - to make flights, carrying others along if…

— E. B. White

All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation-it is the Self-escaping into the open.

— E. B. White

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature…

— E. B. White

Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply…

— E. B. White

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

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

A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is…

— E. B. White

I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way…

— E. B. White

I have just been refining the room in which I sit, yet I sometimes doubt that a writer should refine or improve…

— E. B. White

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

“...a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He…

— E. B. White

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being the owner of Dachshunds, to me a book on dog discipline becomes a volume of inspired humor. Every sentence is a…

— E. B. White

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

I have no warm up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink.

— E. B. White

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.

— E. B. White

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

A writer should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.

— E. B. White

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

— E. B. White

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

— E. B. White

Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.

— E. B. White

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