E.B. White

6:20/5:40, 74/93. Podcast (Soundcloud/Opinion)

Birthday of ever-quotable Elwyn Brooks (E.B., "Andy") White, who said:

I rise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy it. This makes it hard to plan the day.

All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.

Never hurry, never worry.

Be obscure clearly.

Semicolons only prove that the author has been to college.

A writer's style reveals something of his spirit, his capacities, his bias. It is the Self escaping into the open.

I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.

And he told George Plimpton, in Paris Review,

I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion, their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation. 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.

Advice, and rays, accepted.
==
Here is New York