E.B. White
Writer
1899-07-11
Quotes by E.B. White
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The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep.
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Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.
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Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
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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 of his acceptance.
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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
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I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.
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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
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English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.
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All we need is a meteorologist who has once been soaked to the skin without ill effect. No one can write knowingly of the weather who walks bent over on wet days.
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I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.
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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.
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Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.
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There is nothing more likely to start disagreement between people or countries than an agreement.
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Don Marquis came down after a month on the wagon, ambled over to the bar, and announced, 'I've conquered that goddamn willpower of mine. Gimme a double Scotch.'
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America is now liberty-conscious. In a single generation it has progressed from being toothbrush-conscious, to being air-minded, to being liberty-conscious.
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Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
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The South is the land of the sustained sibilant. Everywhere, for the appreciative visitor, the letter s insinuates itself in the scene: in the sound of sea and sand, in the singing shell, in the heat of sun and sky, in the sultriness of the gentle hours, in the siesta, in the stir of birds and insects.
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Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.
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A fraternity is the antithesis of fraternity. The first (that is, the order of organization) is predicated on the idea of exclusion; the second (that is, the abstract thing) is based on a feeling of total equality.
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The bonus is really one of the great give-aways in business enterprise. It is the annual salve applied to the conscience of the rich and the wounds of the poor.
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