E.B. White, beloved children’s author (Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan), innovative and revered essayist, and co-editor of the indispensable The Elements of Style, celebrates a birthday today. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York, on July 11, 1899. A deeply private man, White, whose full name was Elwyn Brooks White (his Cornell University nickname was “Andy”), had an abiding love for nature and ecology, most evident in his children’s books and essays.
His first publication appeared in The New Yorker in 1925. He went on to become a contributing editor for the magazine in 1927; in this capacity he wrote over 1800 articles. He was credited by famed New Yorker editor William Shawn for inventing a new literary form—the magazine’s “Comment” essay: often personal, incorporating the writer’s first person experience, while also being critical and incisive, as well as accessible to a wide readership. E.B. White loved writing, and given his prolificacy across multiple genres, this versatile wordsmith had some sage advice when it came to craft. Here are some of his most interesting thoughts on writing, creativity, and the majesty of the written word.
On the importance of a writer’s instinct (and on taking your time):
When I finished Charlotte’s Web, I put it away, feeling that something was wrong. The story had taken me two years to write, working on and off, but I was in no particular hurry. I took another year to write it, and it was a year well spent. If I write something and feel doubtful about it, I soak it away. The passage of time can help in evaluating it. But in general, I tend to rush into print, riding a wave of emotion.
–from a 1969 interview in The Paris Review
On the blank page:
. . .a blank sheet of paper holds the greatest excitement there is for me—more promising than a silver cloud, prettier than a little red wagon. It holds all the hope there is, all fears. I can remember, really quite distinctly, looking a sheet of paper square in the eyes when I was seven or eight years old and thinking, ‘This is where I belong. This is it.’
–from Letters of E.B. White
On writing for children:
Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly. I handed them, against the advice of experts, a mouse-boy, and they accepted it without a quiver. In Charlotte’s Web, I gave them a literate spider, and they took that.
–from a 1969 interview in The Paris Review
On style:
With some writers, style not only reveals the spirit of the man but reveals his identity, as surely as would his fingerprints.
–from The Elements of Style
On the importance of clarity:
The 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.
–from a 1942 interview in the New York Times
On what to do when you’re struggling:
I’ve yet to see the book that was effortless to write. They all take it out of you, one way or another. . .
If you are at the moment struggling with a book, what you should ask yourself is, Do I really care about this particular set of characters, this thing I am doing? If you do, then nothing should deter you. If you are doubtful about it, then I’d turn to something else. I knew, in the case of Charlotte, that I cared deeply about the whole bunch of them. So I went ahead.
–from Letters of E.B. White
On editing yourself:
I do think the ability to evaluate one’s own stuff with reasonable accuracy is a helpful piece of equipment. I’ve known good writers who’ve had it, and I’ve known good writers who’ve not. I’ve known writers who were utterly convinced that anything at all, if it came from their pen, was the work of genius and as close to being right as anything can be.
–from a 1969 interview in The Paris Review
On procrastination:
Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer—he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? Of strength? Of courage?) that will carry him along. I have no warm-up exercises, other than the occasional drink. I am apt to let something simmer in my mind before trying to put it into words. I walk around, straightening pictures on the wall, rugs on the floor—as though not until everything in the world was lined up and perfectly true could anybody reasonably expect me to set a word down on the page.
–from a 1969 interview in The Paris Review
On inspiration:
All this about inspiration. Now look, I can’t tell you anything about methods of work . . . But I do think that all this about inspiration, I think writing is mainly work. Like a mechanic’s job. A mechanic might as well say he was waiting for inspiration before he greased your car because if he didn’t feel just right, he’d miss a lot of the grease points, that he had to feel right up to it.
–from a 1942 interview in the New York Times
On the importance of dreams:
…Stuart Little appeared to me in a dream, all complete, with his hat, his cane, and his brisk manner. Since he was the only fictional figure ever to honor and disturb my sleep, I was deeply touched, and felt that I was not free to change him into a grasshopper or a wallaby. . .
–from Letters of E.B. White
On the writer’s responsibility:
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: 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. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
–from a 1969 interview in The Paris Review
On the role of the writer:
A writer must reflect and interpret his society, his world; he must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge. Much writing today strikes me as deprecating, destructive, and angry. There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger. But 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. One role of the writer today is to sound the alarm. The environment is disintegrating, the hour is late, and not much is being done. Instead of carting rocks from the moon, we should be carting the feces out of Lake Erie.
–from a 1969 interview in The Paris Review
On hope:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness. Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out. Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
–from Letters of E.B. White
On what, after all, he is trying to say:
What am I saying to my readers? Well, I never know. Writing to me is not an exercise in addressing readers, it is more as though I were talking to myself while shaving. My foray into the field of children’s literature was an accident, and although I do not mean to suggest that I spun my two yarns in perfect innocence and that I did not set about writing Charlotte’s Web deliberately, nevertheless, the thing started innocently enough, and I kept on because I found it was fun. It also became rewarding in other ways–and that was a surprise, as I am not essentially a storyteller and was taking a holiday from my regular work.
All that I ever hope to say in books is that I love the world. I guess you can find that in there, if you dig around. Animals are part of my world and I try to report them faithfully and with respect.
–as published in the New York Times, 1961
