LitStack Pick: The Lines We Wish We’d Written

Charlotte’s Web
EB White

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”  ~ EB White

I usually always get up in the morning with the best of intentions.  I have so much I plan to do, so many things to accomplish.  Things for myself, things for others.  Things I should do, things I want to do, things that are the right things to do, and occasionally things that just are plain wrong but I want to do them anyway.  So often, though, I am stranded between competing intentions, and end up instead just spinning my wheels, not accomplishing much of anything.  When I first heard this quote from EB White (author of Charlotte’s Web), I thought – yes!  That’s it exactly!

So while this is not technically a literary quote since it didn’t show up in any of Mr. White’s published works (sorry if I threw anyone off with the graphic), it’s a quote by a literary person.  I guess in this case, I came down on the side of enjoying the world, eh?

-Sharon Browning