E. B. White
Overview
 
Elwyn Brooks White usually known as E. B. White, was an American writer. A long-time contributor to The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

magazine, he also wrote many famous books for both adults and children, such as the popular Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's Web is an award-winning children's novel by acclaimed American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte. The book was first published in 1952, with illustrations by Garth Williams.The novel tells the story...

and Stuart Little
Stuart Little
Stuart Little is a 1945 children's novel by E. B. White, his first book for children, and is widely recognized as a classic in children's literature. Stuart Little was illustrated by the subsequently award-winning artist Garth Williams, also his first work for children...

,
and co-authored a widely used writing guide, The Elements of Style
The Elements of Style
The Elements of Style , also known as Strunk & White, by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, is a prescriptive American English writing style guide comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of forty-nine "words and...

,
popularly known by its authors' names, as "Strunk & White."
White was born in Albany, New York, the youngest child of Samuel Johnson, a piano manufacturer, and Jessie Hart.
Quotations

"It's broccoli, dear." "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."

Caption for a cartoon by Carl Rose|Carl Rose in The New Yorker (8 December 1928)

Commuter — one who spends his lifeIn riding to and from his wife;A man who shaves and takes a trainAnd then rides back to shave again.

"Commuter," The Lady Is Cold (1929)

I have occasionally had the exquisite thrill of putting my finger on a little capsule of truth, and heard it give the faint squeak of mortality under my pressure.

Letter to Stanley Hart White (January 1929)

Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams — Joseph (Hebrew Bible)|Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.

"Truth in Advertising," The New Yorker (1936-07-11)

Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.

"The Old and the New," The New Yorker (1937-06-19) image:Frog01.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

All poets who, when reading from their own works, experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not.

"How to Tell a Major Poet from a Minor Poet" in The New Yorker (1938); reprinted in Quo Vadimus: Or, the Case for the Bicycle (1939)

Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

"Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941)

 
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