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E.B. White Quotes | Quotes said by E.B. White

  • E.B. White Quote #1

    ...all his thoughts were of how lucky he was to inhabit such a beautiful earth, how lucky he had been to solve his problems with music, and how pleasant it was to look forward to another night of sleep and another day tomorrow, and the fresh morning, and the light that returns with the day.


  • E.B. White Quote #2

    ...Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people
    are right more than half the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths,the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee.

  • E.B. White Quote #3

    A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. 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. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

    [Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]

  • E.B. White Quote #4

    A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

  • E.B. White Quote #5

    A schoolchild should be taught grammar--for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.

  • E.B. White Quote #6

    After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.

  • E.B. White Quote #7

    All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

  • E.B. White Quote #8

    Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

  • E.B. White Quote #9

    As everyone knows, there is often a rather fine line between laughing and crying

  • E.B. White Quote #10

    By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience- if they did they would live elsewhere.

  • E.B. White Quote #11

    Don't write about Man; write about a man.

  • E.B. White Quote #12

    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 Quote #13

    Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.

  • E.B. White Quote #14

    Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

  • E.B. White Quote #15

    Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time.

  • E.B. White Quote #16

    I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively, instead of skeptically and dictatorially.

  • E.B. White Quote #17

    I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

  • E.B. White Quote #18

    I have seldom met an individual of literary tastes or propensities in whom the writing of love was not directly attributable to the love of writing.

    A person of this sort falls terribly in love, but in the end it turns out that he is more bemused by a sheet of white paper than a sheet of white bed linen. He would rather leap into print with his lady than leap into bed with her. (This first pleases the lady and then annoys her. She wants him to do both, and with virtually the same impulse.)

  • E.B. White Quote #19

    I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.

  • E.B. White Quote #20

    I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

  • E.B. White Quote #21

    I'm really too young to go out into the world alone, he thought as he lay down

  • E.B. White Quote #22

    I'm really too young to go out into the world alone, he thought as he lay down.

  • E.B. White Quote #23

    I’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?

  • E.B. White Quote #24

    If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

  • E.B. White Quote #25

    If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud! (William Strunk) ... Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?

  • E.B. White Quote #26

    It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

  • E.B. White Quote #27

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

  • E.B. White Quote #28

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

  • E.B. White Quote #29

    It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when conditions are right. Man's curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.

  • E.B. White Quote #30

    It was a delicious meal -- skim milk, wheat middlings, leftover pancakes, half a doughnut, the rind of a summer squash, two pieces of stale toast, a third of a gingersnap, a fish tail, one orange peel, several noodles from a noodle soup, the scum off a cup of cocoa, an ancient jelly roll, a strip of paper from the lining of the garbage pail, and a spoonful of raspberry jello.

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