Elwyn Brooks White Quotes

266 quotes in 3286 categories

• A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.
• Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the…
• The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. Because I have the greatest respect for the reader, and if…
• I have occasionally had the exquisite thrill of putting my finger on a little capsule of truth, and heard it give the faint squeak of…
• Our vegetable garden is coming along well, with radishes and beans up, and we are less worried about revolution that we used to be.
• We stand or fall by television.
• All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation-it is the Self-escaping into the open.
• I have no warm up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink.
• No matter what changes take place in the world, or in me, nothing ever seems to disturb the face of spring.
• Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.
• When snow accumulates week after week, month after month, it works curious miracles.
• A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom- he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.
• Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a…
• Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
• The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.
• Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.
• I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer…
• The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
• Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.
• A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there in a book, you may have your question answered

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