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
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
Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor
—E. B. White
Topics: Americans
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
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
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: Authors & Writing, Writing, Writers
Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.
—E. B. White
Topics: Prejudice, Opinions
Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch
—E. B. White
Topics: Pregnancy
Deathlessness should be arrived at in a… haphazard fashion. Loving fame as much as any man, we shall carve our initials in the shell of a tortoise and turn him loose in a peat bog.
—E. B. White
Topics: Immortality
I’m not against machines, as are some people who feel that the computer is leading us back into the jungle…I’m against machines only when the convenience they afford to some people is regarded as more important than the inconvenience they cause to all.
In short, I don’t think computers should wear the pants or make the decisions. They are deficient in humor, they are not intuitive, and they are not aware of the imponderables. The men who feed them seem to believe that everything is made out of ponderables, which isn’t the case. I read a poem once that a computer had written, but didn’t care much for it. It seemed to me I could write a better one myself, if I were to put my mind to it.
—E. B. White
Topics: Computers
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
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.
—E. B. White
Topics: Humor
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
Topics: Planning, Life
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 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
Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams—Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.
—E. B. White
Topics: Advertising
There is no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.
—E. B. White
Topics: Consequences
Writing is both mask and unveiling.
—E. B. White
Topics: Writing
Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.
—E. B. White
Topics: Cities, City Life
Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
—E. B. White
Topics: Writing
There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
—E. B. White
Topics: Agreement
A “fraternity” is the antithesis of fraternity. The first… is predicated on the idea of exclusion; the second (that is, the abstract thing) is based on a feeling of total equality.
—E. B. White
Topics: Perspective
A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.
—E. B. White
Topics: Politicians, Politics
It is at a fair that man can be drunk forever on liquor, love, or fights; at a fair that your front pocket can be picked by a trotting horse looking for sugar, and your hind pocket by a thief looking for his fortune.
—E. B. White
Topics: Parties
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
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.
—E. B. White
Topics: Friends and Friendship, Friendship
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: Action, Change, Time Management, Good
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
—E. B. White
Commuter—one who spends his life in riding to and from his wife; And man who shaves and takes a train, and then rides back to shave again.
—E. B. White
Topics: City Life, Cities
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
Topics: Politics
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