Quotes by E. B. White

“Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time”

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

“I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.”

“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.”

“The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind”

“I dont know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens”

“Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than a whole one”

“Be obscure clearly.”

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”

“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”

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

“Another segment of society that has constructed a language of its own is business. ... [The businessman] is speaking a language that is familiar to him and dear to him. Its portentous nouns and verbs invest ordinary events with high adventure; the executive walks among ink erasers caparisoned like a knight. This we should be tolerant of--every man of spirit wants to ride a white horse. ... A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the users dreams than to express his precise meaning.”

Reading is the work of the alert mind is demanding and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy. This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication.

His words leap across rivers and mountains but his thoughts are still only six inches long.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Humour plays close to the big hot fire which is the truth and the reader feels the heat.

Humour can be dissected as a frog can but the thing dies in the process.

Commuter - One who spends his life in riding to and from his wife a man who shaves and takes a train and then rides back to shave again.

A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer he approaches lucid ground warily like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom on anything solid. A poets pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

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