E. B. White Quotes about Children

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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

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.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

E. B. White

Children, Writing, Games

Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.

E. B. White

Children, Hard Times, Games

"Writers at Work". Interview with George Plimpton and Frank Crowther, Paris Review, 1969.

Mother: It's broccoli, dear. --- Child: I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

E. B. White

Mother, Children, Hell

Cartoon caption, New Yorker, 8 Dec. 1928

Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

E. B. White

Children, True Friend, Life Changing

Charlotte'sWeb ch. 22 (1952)

A man's liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the time he is born. Children are radicals. Youths are conservatives, with a dash of criminal negligence. Men in their prime are liberals (as long as their digestion keeps pace with their intellect). The middle aged run to shelter: they insure their life, draft a will, accumulate mementos and occasional tables, and hope for security. And then comes old age, which repeats childhood - a time full of humors and sadness, but often full of courage and even prophecy.

E. B. White

Running, Children, Sadness

Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.

E. B. White

Children, Spring, Heart

E. B. White (2014). “Essays of E. B. White”, p.17, Harper Collins

A schoolchild should be taught grammar - for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.

E. B. White

Children, Writing, Way

E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.120, Cornell University Press