It is a miracle that New York works at all. The whole thing is implausible. E. B. White More Quotes by E. B. White More Quotes From E. B. White The 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. E. B. White citiesraceislands Is there anything in the universe more beautiful and protective than the simple complexity of a spider's web? E. B. White spiderssimplebeautiful 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. E. B. White fertilityoilspring English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street. E. B. White taste-and-judgmentcommunicationluck Children 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. E. B. White hard-timesgameschildren Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken strand to you For my returning. E. B. White discerningspidersgone Salutations; it's just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning E. B. White saying-hellofancymorning I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow. E. B. White barnsshadowblue I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel. E. B. White spaceviewsscience There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on. E. B. White trackscarywriting Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions. E. B. White distractioncreation Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand. E. B. White obscuretongueway People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust. E. B. White sillymotivationalpeople Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men. E. B. White good-luckmenlife The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear. E. B. White editingwritingtrying Our vegetable garden is coming along well, with radishes and beans up, and we are less worried about revolution that we used to be. E. B. White revolutiongardenvegetables Liberals 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. E. B. White crazydogattitude 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 veilspoetrydoe The 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. E. B. White politicsrunningpeople Life's meaning has always eluded me and I guess always will. But I love it just the same. E. B. White justicelife
