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Your Quotes for 11 July 2005 - E. B. White

Elwyn Brooks White was born at Mount Vernon, New York on this day in 1899. After graduating from Cornell in 1921 he worked as a reporter for United Press, the American Legion News, and the Seattle Times before returning to New York. He worked in advertising there before becoming an early contributor to the New Yorker, where he spent the rest of his career. In addition to his essays there he wrote a column for Harper's, several children's books, and updated and expanded William Strunk's The Elements of Style. Because of the wide impact of that last title, although it arguably had less effect on my prose than might be desired, I've chosen several of his thoughts on writing.

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

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 happen to strike me.

Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and intent.

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 in the narrow path she helped make, following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be handicapped if she didn't know where it was or where it led to.

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
     - All from Elwyn Brooks White, 1899 - 1985

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