Best quotes by E. B. White

ТвариниObservationCommunicationIt is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention.

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

CreativityGenius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

ВсесвітBeautyProtectionComplexityIs there anything in the universe more beautiful and protective than the simple complexity of a spider's web?

DeterminationDirectionPerseveranceEncouragementMoving ForwardI am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn't know where else to go.

NatureInspirationObservationWhen I get sick of what men do, I have only to walk a few steps in another direction to see what spiders do. Or what the weather does. This sustains me very well indeed.

FamiliarityNationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one's belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.

DreamsBeliefFaithSongsPoetsI believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.

ContentmentMindfulnessLiving In The Present MomentNever hurry and never worry!

РозлукаWhen an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.

ScienceUnpredictabilityThe so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation's pulse, you can't be sure that the nation hasn't just run up a flight of stairs.

Sense of humorSkillsA good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.

ПогодаChangeOptimismSailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.

HealthHard WorkDedicationChallengesWritingWriting is hard work and bad for the health.

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

JourneyOptimismStuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north...As he peeked ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.

JourneyDogsLiberals are like dogs: The liberal holds that he is true to the republic when he is true to himself. (It may not be as cozy an attitude as it sounds.) He greets with enthusiasm the fact of the journey, as a dog greets a man's invitation to take a walk. And he acts in the dog's way too, swinging wide, racing ahead, doubling back, covering many miles of territory that the man never traverses, all in the spirit of inquiry and the zest for truth. He leaves a crazy trail, but he ranges far beyond the genteel old party he walks with and he is usually in a better position to discover a skunk.

EducationLuckJudgmentEnglish usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.

LoveEarly 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.

ActionConsequencesJusticeMoralityGood deeds never go unpunished.

LearningEngagementChildrenWordsContextChildren are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.

ComparisonLiteratureI don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

StyleSimplicityThe 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.

New York CityThere are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.

FriendshipGeese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.

FriendshipLoveWritingRemembranceWilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

I have noticed that most men when they enter a barber shop and must wait their turn, drop into a chair and pick up a magazine. I simply sit down and pick up the thread of my sea wanderings, which began more than fifty years ago and is not quite ended. There is hardly a waiting room in the east that has not served as my cockpit, whether I was waiting to board a train or to see a dentist. And I am usually still trimming sheets when the train starts or drill begins to whine.

BooksThoughtsReadingBooks hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together-just the two of you.

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.

ComfortFrom morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.

СовістьMoralityThe rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything

FriendshipI’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty—everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?

Salutations; it's just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning

ПринципиХарактерAmericans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

AppearanceIgnoranceIndifferenceOh, I never look under the hood.

WritingSelf-ReflectionI am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they

UnderstandingLearningCuriosityCommunicationAnd then, just as Wilbur was settling down for his morning nap, he heard again the thin voice that had addressed him the night before. "Salutations!" said the voice. Wilbur jumped to his feet. "Salu-what?" he cried. "Salutations!" repeated the voice. "What are they, and where are you?" screamed Wilbur. "Please, please, tell me where you are. And what are salutations?" "Salutations are greetings," said the voice. "When I say 'salutations,' it's just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning.

МореNatureReflectionPerspectiveThe sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?" E. B. White "On A Florida Key

BooksPersonal PreferenceOwnershipReadingReliefWalden is the only book I own, although there are some others unclaimed on my shelves. Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this is mine. It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest, and I keep it about me in much the same way one carries a handkerchief - for relief in moments of defluxion or despair.

LifeE B WhiteChallengeAn unhatched egg is to me the greatest challenge in life.

DeterminationSelf-ExpressionWriting ProcessThere is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.

SuccessFocusConsistencyWritingLanguageThere 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.

PhilosophyExistenceWhat do you mean less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something - even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.

WritingAdviceAdvice from this elderly practitioner is to forget publishers and just roll a sheet of copy paper into your machine and get lost in your subject.

Personal GrowthAwarenessSelf-DiscoveryConsciousnessOnce in everyone's life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half-asleep.

AutumnChangeSadnessThe crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.

RecognitionSatisfactionCompetitionIt is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.

Sense of humorSelf-PerceptionBeliefsWhatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.

Self-ReflectionSelf-AwarenessThe whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.

New YorkCity Lifenew york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.

PassionCity LifeCommuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

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

FriendshipComfortSurvivalWilbur burst into tears. "I dont want to die," he moaned. "I want to stay alive, right here in my comfortable manure pile with all my friends. I want to breathe the beautiful air and lie in the beautiful sun."

FriendshipRelationshipsGratitudeAppreciationYou have been my friends. That in itself is a tremendous thing.

InfluenceWritingPerspectiveBiasI 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 leans, and no man is born perpendicular.

MusicDiversityCity LifeThe city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines.

BeautyPoetryMeaningPleasureA poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.

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

AcceptanceViolenceThe 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.

PerceptionPeople are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

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

FocusProductivityCreationPrioritizationCreation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.

ImprovementWritingCommunicationRewritingClarityThe main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

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

HappinessWhen I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.

ImaginationRealityBut real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination.

ПравилаStyleWritingGuidanceClarityThere is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rules by which the young writer may steer his course. He will often find himself steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.

WritingAdviceAdvice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.

TimeDogsIt sometimes takes days, even weeks, before a dog's nerves tire. In the case of terriers it can run into months.

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.

But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm... in the middle of the web there were the words 'Some Pig'... we have no ordinary pig." "Well", said Mrs. Zuckerman, "it seems to me you're a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.

СтресThoughtsToo many things on my mind, said Wilbur. Well, said the goose, that's not my trouble. I have nothing at all on my mind, but I've too many things under my behind.

"What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle--it's just a web." "Ever try to spin one?" asked Mr. Dorian.

PoliticsA candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.

The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people.