Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one's belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.
E. B. WhiteFrom morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.
E. B. WhiteIn 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. WhiteThere is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are momentsโmoments of sustained creationโwhen his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on.
E. B. WhiteThe main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. Because I have the greatest respect for the reader, and if he's going to the trouble of reading what I've written -- I'm a slow reader myself and I guess most people are -- why, the least I can do is make it as easy as possible for him to find out what I'm trying to say, trying to get at. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
E. B. White