E. B. White (1985–99,) fully Elwyn Brooks White, was an American essayist, author, and literary stylist, whose eloquent prose and the clarity of his rhetoric appealed to readers of all ages.
Born in Mount Vernon, New York, White graduated from Cornell 1821 and worked as a reporter and freelance writer. He joined The New Yorker in 1926 and he remained with the weekly magazine for the rest of his career. For three decades, under White’s direction, The New Yorker became a paragon of elegant and simple style in non-fiction. He also wrote a monthly column of essays about rural life for Harper’s magazine 1938–43.
White’s notable books of essays include Quo Vadimus? (1939,) One Man’s Meat (1942,) and The Points of My Compass (1962.) White is the author of the children’s classics Stuart Little (1945,) Charlotte’s Web (1952; animated film, 1973; feature film, 2006,) and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970; film, 1999; sequel, 2002.)
White is also known for his best-selling revision of William Strunk Jr’s Elements of Style, popularly known as Strunk and White (1959.)
White’s Letters were published in 1976, and a collection of his Poems and Sketches in 1981.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by E. B. White
Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
—E. B. White
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
—E. B. White
Topics: Agreement
Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch
—E. B. White
Topics: Pregnancy
An intelligence service is, in fact, a stupidity service
—E. B. White
Topics: Intelligence
In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.
—E. B. White
Topics: Age, Aging
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
Topics: Liberalism
The total collapse of the public opinion polls shows that this country is in good health. A country that developed an airtight system of finding out in advance what was in people’s minds would be uninhabitable.
—E. B. White
Topics: Politics
I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult.
—E. B. White
Topics: Good, Change, Time Management, Action
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
—E. B. White
Topics: Writing
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
—E. B. White
The whole problem is to establish communication with one’s self.
—E. B. White
Topics: Communication, Problems
Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.
—E. B. White
Topics: City Life, Cities
A man is not expected to love his country, lest he make an ass of himself. Yet our country, seen through the mists of smog, is curiously lovable, in somewhat the way an individual who has got himself into an unconscionable scrape seems lovable—or at least deserving of support.
—E. B. White
Topics: America
Television hangs on the questionable theory that whatever happens anywhere should be sensed everywhere. If everyone is going to be able to see everything, in the long run all sights may lose whatever rarity value they once possessed, and it may well turn out that people, being able to see and hear practically everything, will be specially interested in almost nothing.
—E. B. White
Topics: Television
There is a period near the beginning of every man’s life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dream, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place.
—E. B. White
Topics: Youth
Americans 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.
—E. B. White
Topics: Principles
Writing is both mask and unveiling.
—E. B. White
Topics: Writing
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
—E. B. White
Topics: Humor
The most puzzling thing about TV is the steady advance of the sponsor across the line that has always separated news from promotion, entertainment from merchandising. The advertiser has assumed the role of originator, and the performer has gradually been eased into the role of peddler.
—E. B. White
Topics: Television
A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can’t get it by breeding for it, and you can’t buy it with money. It just happens along.
—E. B. White
Topics: Dogs
A man’s liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the time he is born. Children are radicals. Youths are conservatives, with a dash of criminal negligence. Men in their prime are liberals (as long as their digestion keeps pace with their intellect). The middle aged run to shelter: they insure their life, draft a will, accumulate mementos and occasional tables, and hope for security. And then comes old age, which repeats childhood—a time full of humors and sadness, but often full of courage and even prophecy.
—E. B. White
Topics: Generations
In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.
—E. B. White
Topics: Age
I 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
—E. B. White
Topics: Anger
English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education—sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.
—E. B. White
Topics: Language
I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. “Never worry about your heart ’til it stops beating.”
—E. B. White
Topics: Worry
In a sense the world dies every time a writer dies, because, if he is any good, he has been a wet nurse to humanity during his entire existence and has held earth close around him, like the little obstetrical toad that goes about with a cluster of eggs attached to his legs.
—E. B. White
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
A 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.
—E. B. White
Topics: Poetry, Poets
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E. B. White
Topics: Democracy
The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay
—E. B. White
Topics: Language
Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.
—E. B. White
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