E.B. White quote: "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to ...
E.B. WHITE

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' '...
E.B. WHITE

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

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be...
E.B. WHITE

I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All wr...
E.B. WHITE

The critic leaves at curtain fall
To find, in starting to review it,
He scarcely saw the...
E.B. WHITE

A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragem...
E.B. WHITE

Clubs, fraternities, nations—these are the beloved barriers in the way of a workable world, these ...
E.B. WHITE

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.
E.B. WHITE

I'm staying right here," grumbled the rat. "I haven't the slightest interest in fairs."
"That's...
E.B. WHITE

Meetings bore me.
E.B. WHITE

The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is em...
E.B. WHITE

I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.
E.B. WHITE

Templeton was down there now, rummaging around. When he returned to the barn, he carried in his mout...
E.B. WHITE

Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
E.B. WHITE

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

I don't understand it, and I don't like what I don't understand.
E.B. WHITE

You have been my friend," replied Charlotte, "That in itself is a tremendous thing.
E.B. WHITE

If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.
E.B. WHITE

And then, just as Wilbur was settling down for his morning nap, he heard again the thin voice that h...
E.B. WHITE

Too many things on my mind, said Wilbur.
Well, said the goose, that's not my trouble. I have no...
E.B. WHITE

But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm... in th...
E.B. WHITE

You have been my friend," replied Charlotte. "That in itself is a tremendous thing...after all, what...
E.B. WHITE

I’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, sc...
E.B. WHITE

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on ...
E.B. WHITE

Wilbur didn't want food, he wanted love.
E.B. WHITE

Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A sma...
E.B. WHITE

It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wa...
E.B. WHITE

Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.
E.B. WHITE

Don't write about Man; write about a man.
E.B. WHITE

Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider's web?"
"Oh, no," said Dr. Dorian....
E.B. WHITE

Never hurry and never worry!
E.B. WHITE

Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.
E.B. WHITE

What do you mean less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Noth...
E.B. WHITE

Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the ...
E.B. WHITE

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I like...
E.B. WHITE

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

The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.
E.B. WHITE

There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to anothe...
E.B. WHITE

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can...
E.B. WHITE

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
E.B. WHITE

I am working on a new book about a boa constrictor and a litter of hyenas. The boa constrictor swall...
E.B. WHITE

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
E.B. WHITE

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

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Child...
E.B. WHITE

Besides, my life is a catastrophe. It's a catastrophe to be without a voice.
E.B. WHITE

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
E.B. WHITE

In the trees the night wind stirs, bringing the leaves to life, endowing them with speech; the elect...
E.B. WHITE

A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thoug...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The total collapse of the public opinion polls shows that this country is in good health. A country ...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredi...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

In a sense the world dies every time a writer dies, because, if he is any good, he has been a wet nu...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excus...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discoura...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The terror of the atom age is not the violence of the new power but the speed of man's adjustment to...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I like...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

A man is not expected to love his country, lest he make an ass of himself. Yet our country, seen thr...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips t...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and ...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, ve...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks abo...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist--nothing shields him from the world's gaze except h...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Deathlessness should be arrived at in a... haphazard fashion. Loving fame as much as any man, we sha...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The liberal holds that he is true to the republic when he is true to himself. (It may not be as cozy...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having create...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Heredity is a strong factor, even in architecture. Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams -- Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, ...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

I'm not against machines, as are some people who feel that the computer is leading us back into the ...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Commuter -- one who spends his life in riding to and from his wife; And man who shaves and takes a t...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the set...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the ...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

It is at a fair that man can be drunk forever on liquor, love, or fights; at a fair that your front ...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

All we need is a meteorologist who has once been soaked to the skin without ill effect. No one can w...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The complaint about modern steel furniture, modern glass houses, modern red bars and modern streamli...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

A man's liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the ...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

The most puzzling thing about TV is the steady advance of the sponsor across the line that has alway...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Television hangs on the questionable theory that whatever happens anywhere should be sensed everywhe...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

There is a period near the beginning of every man's life when he has little to cling to except his u...
E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE

Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjectivehasn't been built that can...
WILLIAM STRUNK JR. E.B. WHITE

All that history, the love & laughter, is designed for youth. It is what keeps the story of who ...
E.B. LOAN

No one could understand the bond between me and my brother. I struggled to understand the forces tha...
BARRY WHITE

People are saying that I'm an alcoholic, and that's not true, because I only drink when I wo...
RON WHITE

I'd rather do a really good small part than a really bad big part.
RON WHITE

The bulk of my fans are my age, and I'm aging at the same rate they are. That makes me relevant....
RON WHITE

I didn't get where I am today by worryin' about how I'd feel tomorrow.
RON WHITE

When I was about 12 years old back in Houston, my Dad used to take us to the driving range.
RON WHITE

Anybody could say anything they want about me, and it literally never penetrates my skin.
RON WHITE

I believe everything creative is somewhat collaborative. If you're a painter and someone stretch...
RON WHITE

I do live like a rock star, but it's not as great as it sounds. It's a lot of traveling.
RON WHITE

Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty... mine's putting in an express lane.
RON WHITE

I believe that a bad Super Bowl halftime show is still better than a soccer game.
RON WHITE

There are two kinds of comics; there are the ones who build bridges, and then there are the people w...
RON WHITE

The next time you have a thought... let it go.
RON WHITE

I was a comedy fan when I was a little kid.
RON WHITE

Pace, rhythm and timing. Pace, rhythm and timing is what it's about. The content's got to be...
RON WHITE

I love Cincinnati, but you can keep that spaghetti chili product!
RON WHITE

When I was a kid, mostly I played in a ditch that didn't have much water in it. It was for drain...
RON WHITE

I've never been one to look up the ladder. I've always looked down the ladder. As long as th...
RON WHITE

Diamonds - that'll shut her up... for a minute!
RON WHITE

I think honest communication, no matter where it comes from, is positive for a relationship.
RON WHITE

You can't fix stupid.
RON WHITE

I've got a great cigar collection - it's actually not a collection, because that would imply...
RON WHITE

I had the right to remain silent... but I didn't have the ability.
RON WHITE

A flower doesn't love you or hate you, it just exists.
MIKE WHITE

The whole purpose of those attacks was to drive those contractors out. Lots of them had to leave. Th...
WAYNE WHITE

I don't like the idea of busing children all over the country. It's not safe. And there does...
WAYNE WHITE

If they make the deadline because the Shiites and Kurds essentially rammed a draft through over Sunn...
WAYNE WHITE

Almost all Iraqis with any previous experience in the intelligence business are Sunni Arab, increasi...
WAYNE WHITE

But nobody predicted anything of this magnitude in terms of resistance. And in part, the magnitude o...
WAYNE WHITE

I feel for the players.
VANNA WHITE

So, I understand when they make a mistake and everyone at home is throwing their shoe at the televis...
VANNA WHITE

There's five cameras, I don't know how many people in the audience... depending on where we&...
VANNA WHITE

I have a family and two cats; I get up with my kids early in the morning.
VANNA WHITE

I do everything that everybody else does.
VANNA WHITE

I will say I remember the best thing in terms of publicity was being on the cover of Newsweek.
VANNA WHITE

I think people think of me as this elegant person because they always see me dressed up.
VANNA WHITE

I'm a mom, a full-time mom when I'm not taping. I do the carpool thing, and bake the cookies...
VANNA WHITE

It's not the most intellectual job in the world, but I do have to know the letters.
VANNA WHITE

I'm really just a normal person.
VANNA WHITE

Playing drums feels like coming home for me. Even during the White Stripes I thought: 'I'll ...
JACK WHITE

A lot of people in the media, and some everyday people, really aren't in search of the truth. Th...
JACK WHITE

I just think old old movies, they make you concentrate and pay attention so much more. They feel so ...
JACK WHITE

I've always felt it's ridiculous to say, of any of the females in my life: You're my fri...
JACK WHITE

There's Catholic guilt about things, then there's the guilt of being the youngest of 10, so ...
JACK WHITE

If you have twenty guys in the room and you just bring in one girl, you change the entire mood and e...
JACK WHITE

We have a secret project at Third Man where we want to have the first vinyl record played in outer s...
JACK WHITE

I would never purposely sing a song about someone I love, I wouldn't want to embarrass them. But...
JACK WHITE

I think that sometimes love gets in the way of itself - you know, love interrupts itself. We want th...
JACK WHITE

I think the sensitivity that you need to create certain things sometimes would spill over into thing...
JACK WHITE

I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. Ther...
JACK WHITE

Nowadays, everybody assumes, when they wake up in the morning, if they have a question, it will get ...
JACK WHITE

I'd make a White Stripes record right now. I'd be in the White Stripes for the rest of my li...
JACK WHITE

I was in a Montessori school. There was a drum circle with all the kids passing around a little bong...
JACK WHITE

With the White Stripes we were trying to trick people into not realising we were playing the blues. ...
JACK WHITE

When you put something out there into the world, there's all these words you don't want to h...
JACK WHITE

I want to be part of the resurgence of things that are tangible, beautiful and soulful, rather than ...
JACK WHITE

I dabbled in things like Howlin' Wolf, Cream and Led Zeppelin, but when I heard Son House and Ro...
JACK WHITE

There aren't that many things left that haven't already been done, especially with music. I&...
JACK WHITE

I really don't like to take the easy way out, if I can help it, on anything I do, I like to real...
JACK WHITE

Usually the thing that signifies that I'm done with the winter and all that is that I start skat...
SHAUN WHITE

Then about 1951 I began writing again, painfully, a novel I called in the beginning A Life Sentence ...
PATRICK WHITE

In fact I enjoyed every minute of my life at King's, especially the discovery of French and Germ...
PATRICK WHITE

I developed the habit of writing novels behind a closed door, or at my uncle's, on the dining ta...
PATRICK WHITE

Probably induced by the asthma, I started reading and writing early on, my literary efforts from the...
PATRICK WHITE

My father and mother were second cousins, though they did not meet till shortly before their marriag...
PATRICK WHITE

I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the ...
PATRICK WHITE

Even if a university should turn out to be another version of a school, I had decided I could lose m...
PATRICK WHITE

I left for New York expecting to repeat my success, only to be turned down by almost every publisher...
PATRICK WHITE

When I was rising eighteen I persuaded my parents to let me return to Australia and at least see whe...
PATRICK WHITE

In spite of holidays when I was free to visit London theatres and explore the countryside, I spent f...
PATRICK WHITE

I think it is impossible to explain faith. It is like trying to explain air, which one cannot do by ...
PATRICK WHITE

If you get into a Broadway show and it doesn't work, you're a failure. And if it does work, ...
BETTY WHITE

This is a vicious witch-hunt aimed at crushing the voice of dissent.
AIDAN WHITE

At a time when editorial independence needs to be defended, we find the closure of this newspaper sh...
AIDAN WHITE

There is a great deal of concern that there is a fundamentalist religiosity emerging that is demandi...
AIDAN WHITE

The media community is determined to create a meaningful dialogue that will improve understanding be...
AIDAN WHITE

Impunity in the killing of journalists remains the intolerable scandal of our times that can no long...
AIDAN WHITE

Baghdad has become a deathtrap for journalism. No journalist is safe once they take to the streets.
AIDAN WHITE

We are asking the government to intervene on behalf of all Canadians. CBC should be providing local ...
AIDAN WHITE

The Tunisian authorities continue to show intolerance of independent opinion and free expression. Bu...
AIDAN WHITE

No. That is not what I heard him say.
AIDAN WHITE

One preacher turned me on, another turned me off.
BARRY WHITE

Most families had four, five brothers. But because it was just me and Darryl, we had to be twice as ...
BARRY WHITE

Elton John's opinion turned the label's opinion around, all in a day.
BARRY WHITE

The whole system of society tells you what to do.
BARRY WHITE

I've always loved War's Low Rider and Sly Stone's Thank You, and I just wanted to put my...
BARRY WHITE

People are always looking for me to be a freak, weird.
BARRY WHITE

I'm very happy with this new record. It's dealing with different aspects of love-it's me...
BARRY WHITE

I don't know if it's my music, my lyrics, my sound, and knowing the music business the way I...
BARRY WHITE

We forget that this music, music made by my brothers and sisters, is still a baby. It's just beg...
BARRY WHITE

The cops picked me up for attempted murder. I can still see the detectives, licking their chops. Tho...
BARRY WHITE

When I commit, I commit with my whole heart, my whole being. I know the Bible like the back of my ha...
BARRY WHITE

I kept my babies fed. I could have dumped them, but I didn't. I decided that whatever trip I was...
BARRY WHITE

As a boy, I believed freedom for America meant freedom for me. There was a time I believed every wor...
BARRY WHITE

I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.
BARRY WHITE

There's people making babies to my music. That's nice.
BARRY WHITE

I'll come to you with gifts of knowledge, wisdom and truth.
BARRY WHITE

I quit high school on my birthday. It was my senior year and I didn't see the point. This was 19...
BARRY WHITE

I try to tell a story musically in a song.
BARRY WHITE

When I saw corruption, I was forced to find truth on my own. I couldn't swallow the hypocrisy.
BARRY WHITE

Mama tried to save us from the streets, but the streets were too strong.
BARRY WHITE

If you go to a building to skate, or if you go to these places to skate, you're told it's ag...
SHAUN WHITE

I've always been under the impression that it would be such a bummer to be in a peaceful place l...
SHAUN WHITE

Apparently, there's a little red demon dwarf that haunts the city, and before every major bad th...
MEG WHITE

It is amazing how generous people really are. This has really been a great thing.
ALAN WHITE

Our strategy is to focus on those areas where we can have a good competitive advantage, so we do thi...
ALAN WHITE

It's too bad that the taxpayers have to bear the brunt of additional bills,
ALAN WHITE

Obasanjo has absolutely no control over this guy, ... like a head of state down there.
ALAN WHITE

It is a great relief to finally have won our first game, especially against such a strong side as Ro...
ALAN WHITE

Every faculty and virtue I possess can be used as an instrument with which to worry myself.
HALE WHITE

There is always a multitude of reasons both in favor of doing a thing and against doing it. The art ...
HALE WHITE

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

Copied!

E.B. White

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

E.B. White

Share:

Related

More E.B. White