"Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing."

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

"It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer."

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

"After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die."

"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 that 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."

"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one."

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."

"One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy."

"Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar."

"Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print."

"I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating."

"Never hurry and never worry!"

"Writing is both mask and unveiling."

"Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process."

"The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind."

"Be obscure clearly."

"Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college."

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

"I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel."

"A writer's style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias...it is the Self escaping into the open."

"I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular."

"Don't write about Man; write about a man."

"There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another."

"It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention."

"Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will."

"Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly."

"You're terrific as far as I am concerned."

"Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand."

"Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man."

"Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it."

"Wilbur didn't want food, he wanted love."

"In every queen there's a touch of floozy."

"Too many things on my mind, said Wilbur. Well, said the goose, that's not my trouble. I have nothing at all on my mind, but I've too many things under my behind."

"The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war."

"Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom."

"If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs."

"To achieve style, begin by affecting none."

"I don't understand it, and I don't like what I don't understand."

"The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound."

"A mistake is simply another way of doing things."

"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."

"If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!" (William Strunk) ... Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?"

"I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens."

"It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people."

"You have been my friend," replied Charlotte, "That in itself is a tremendous thing."

"In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone."

"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or doing laundry."