Quotes about writ
writing speech tests
In dialogue, make sure that your attributives do not awkwardly interrupt a spoken sentence. Place them where the breath would come naturally in speech-that is, where the speaker would pause for emphasis, or take a breath. The best test for locating an attributive is to speak the sentence aloud. E. B. White
writing firsts flight
I have always felt that the first duty of a writer was to ascend - to make flights, carrying others along if you can manage it. To do this takes courage, even a certain conceit. E. B. White
writing weather skins
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
writing thinking ideas
Templeton was down there now, rummaging around. When he returned to the barn, he carried in his mouth an advertisement he had torn from a crumpled magazine. How's this?" he asked, showing the ad to Charlotte. It says 'Crunchy.' 'Crunchy' would be a good word to write in your web." Just the wrong idea," replied Charlotte. "Couldn't be worse. We don't want Zuckerman to think Wilbur is crunchy. He might start thinking about crisp, crunchy bacon and tasty ham. That would put ideas into his head. We must advertise Wilbur's noble qualities, not his tastiness. E. B. White
writing littles comedy
A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy. E. B. White
writing thinking practice
Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too. E. B. White
writing paper may
In the nature of things, a person engaged in the flimsy business of expressing himself on paper is dependent on the large general privilege of being heard. Any intimation that this privilege may be revoked throws a writer into panic. E. B. White
writing doubt rooms
I have just been refining the room in which I sit, yet I sometimes doubt that a writer should refine or improve his workroom by so much as a dictionary: one thing leads to another and the first thing you know he has a stuffed chair and is fast asleep in it. E. B. White
writing miracle trying
Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider's web?" "Oh, no," said Dr. Dorian. "I don't understand it. But for that matter I don't understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle." "What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle-it's just a web." "Ever try to spin one?" asked Dr. Dorian. E. B. White
writing past life-is-like
Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it. E. B. White
writing merit clarity
Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one. E. B. White
writing want pay
There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed. E. B. White
writing design style
Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs; do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts as the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite. E. B. White
writing heart long
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. E. B. White
writing thinking way
I always write a thing first and think about it afterward, which is not a bad procedure because the easiest way to have consequential thoughts is to start putting them down. E. B. White
writing men young-writers
Don't write about Man; write about a man. E. B. White
writing men might
As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly and unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost. E. B. White
writing men advice
Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man. E. B. White
writing track scary
There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when 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. White
writing heart typewriters
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. ... A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. E. B. White
writing shapes
Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life. E. B. White
writing learning rewriting
The best writing is rewriting. E. B. White
writing editors desire
An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write. E. B. White
writing self stamina
Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays E. B. White
writing exercise journey
Writing is not an exercise in excision, it's a journey into sound. E. B. White
writing men thinking
The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. E. B. White
writing admiration admire
I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all. E. B. White
writing attention bass
I really pay attention to the bass in the music I listen to, and that's what I tend to write toward. Dustin Diamond
writing years trying
I stopped working a few years ago because I just lost a spark that I'd had before. I thought I'd just try writing, and maybe start directing, but I did it very quietly. Dustin Hoffman
writing different truth-is
The truth is, writing and directing are two very different jobs. They're not even remotely the same job. It took me a while, as a director, to understand that. Drew Goddard
writing eight years
The decision to write full time was made when I was twenty-eight years old and had just had two small plays accepted for BBC Radio. Douglas Kennedy
writing technology digital-revolution
The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing. Douglas Engelbart
writing thinking stills
I think writing would have happened to me anyway, somehow. Differently, but it still would have happened. Douglas Coupland