A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.
E. B. White

A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy.
E. B. White

All we need is a meteorologist who has once been soaked to the skin without ill effect. No one can write knowingly of the weather who walks bent over on wet days.
E. B. White

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
E. B. White

Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White

Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.
E. B. White

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

English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.
E. B. White

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.
E. B. White

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


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

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

I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.
E. B. White

I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.
E. B. White

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
E. B. White

It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.
E. B. White

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

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
E. B. White

Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.
E. B. White

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
E. B. White