It is by all odds the loftiest of cities. It even managed to reach the highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the depression.
E. B. WhiteRead
Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life allows us to make changes and corrections, but our past actions and experiences remain part of us.
This quote by E. B. White highlights the idea that while we can modify our current path or decisions—much like crossing out words with a pen—our past is something we cannot completely erase. It serves as a reminder that our history shapes who we are, and instead of attempting to erase the past, we should learn from it and move forward.
Themes
LifePastPenChangeAcceptance
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech to emphasize embracing past experiences.
More from E. B. White
All quotes →It isn't silence you can cut with a knife any more, it's interchange of ideas. Intelligent discussion of practically everything is what is breaking up modern marriage.
E. B. WhiteRead
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.
E. B. WhiteRead
A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.
E. B. WhiteRead
A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom- he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.
E. B. WhiteRead
All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation-it is the Self-escaping into the open.
E. B. WhiteRead
Similar quotes
From breakfast, or noon at the latest, to dinner, I am mostly on horseback, Attending to My Farm or other concerns, which I find healthful to my body, mind, and affairs.
Thomas JeffersonRead
Meg, don't you think you'd make a better adjustment to life if you faced facts?" I do face facts," Meg said. They're lots easier to face than people, I can tell you.
Madeleine L'EngleRead
Hospitalizations in general are blurry. The days are the same, precisely the same. Nothing changes. Life melts down to a simple progression of meals. They become a way of life fairly quickly. You may welcome this transition. It may seem inevitable to you. You have been removed from the world. It is all right, in a way, because there is nothing so sure, so safe, as routine.
Marya HornbacherRead
I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
Gentleman-rankers out on the spree, damned from here to Eternity.
Rudyard KiplingRead
Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air; And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair; And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome; But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.
Henry Van DykeRead