Quotes by E. B. White

"There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another."

"I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens."

"The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people."

"There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement."

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

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

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

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

"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry."

"To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year."

"I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel."

"When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad."

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time."

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

"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."

"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one."

"Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor."

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

"Writing is hard work and bad for the health."

"Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts."