E. B. White Quotes About Mind

• Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind? Who knows why certain notes in music are capable of stirring the listener deeply, though the same notes slightly rearranged are impotent? These are high mysteries, and this chapter is a mystery story, thinly disguised.

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  E. B. White

  William Strunk Jr., E.B. White (1962). “the Elements of Style”

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

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  E. B. White

  422

• I discovered a long time ago that writing of the small things of the day, the trivial matters of the heart, the inconsequential but near things of this living, was the only kind of creative work which I could accomplish with any sincerity or grace. As a reporter, I was a flop, because I always came back laden not with facts about the case, but with a mind full of the little difficulties and amusements I had encountered in my travels.

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  E. B. White

  E. B. White (1989). “The Letters of E. B. White”, Perennial

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• 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.

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  E. B. White

  E. B. WHITE (1954). “The SECOND TREE from the CORNER”

  2020

• The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition. (Written in 1949, 22 years before the World Trade Center was completed.)

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  E. B. White

  Here Is New York (1949)

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• Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.

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  E. B. White

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.171, Cornell University Press

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• The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.

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  E. B. White

  "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk, Jr., E. B. White, (Ch. V), 1972.

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• Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.

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  E. B. White

  William Strunk, Jr., E. B. White (1972). “The Elements of Style”

  488

• There is another sort of day which needs celebrating in song -- the day of days when spring at last holds up her face to be kissed, deliberate and unabashed. On that day no wind blows either in the hills or in the mind.

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  E. B. White

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• Too many things on my mind, said Wilbur. Well, said the goose, that's not my trouble. I have nothing at all on my mind, but I've too many things under my behind.

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  E. B. White

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.208, Cornell University Press

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• A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate millions... Of all targets New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.

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  E. B. White

  "Here Is New York". Book by E. B. White, 1948.

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