E. B. White Quotes

168 Sourced Quotes

Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.

E. B. White
Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.

E. B. White
Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp - everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.

E. B. White
I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen.

E. B. White
America is now liberty-conscious. In a single generation it has progressed from being toothbrush-conscious, to being air-minded, to being liberty-conscious.

E. B. White
A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning.

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, and does not thrash about.

E. B. White
As in the sexual experience, there are never more than two persons present in the act of reading-the writer, who is the impregnator, and the reader, who is the resspondent. This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication.

E. B. White
The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style - all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.

E. B. White
The world likes humor, but it treats it patronizingly. It decorates its serious artists with laurel, and its wags with Brussels sprouts.

E. B. White
Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.

E. B. White
Extreme cold when it first arrives seems to generate cheerfulness and sociability. For a few hours all life's dubious problems are dropped in favor of the clear and congenial task of keeping alive.

E. B. White
Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind? Who knows why certain notes in music are capable of stirring the listener deeply, though the same notes slightly rearranged are impotent? These are high mysteries, and this chapter is a mystery story, thinly disguised.

E. B. White
In the nature of things, a person engaged in the flimsy business of expressing himself on paper is dependent on the large general privilege of being heard. Any intimation that this privilege may be revoked throws a writer into panic.

E. B. White
New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute.

E. B. White
Life's accumulation is more discouraging than life itself, when stirred up.

E. B. White
People are animals, and the city is full of people in strange plumage.

E. B. White
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.

E. B. White