The Second Tree from the Corner Quotes

“Have you ever found anything that gives you relief?"... "Yes. A drink”
― E.B. White, The Second Tree from the Corner

“To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year. "The Distant Music of the Hounds," 1954”
― E.B. White, The Second Tree from the Corner

“Trexler knew what he wanted, and what, in general, all men wanted; and he was glad, in a way, that it was both inexpressible and unattainable, and that it wasn't a wing. He was satisfied to remember that it was deep, formless, enduring and impossible of fulfillment, and that it made men sick, and that when you sauntered along Third Avenue and looked through the doorways into the dim saloons, you could sometimes pick out from the unregenerate ranks the ones who had not forgotten, gazing steadily into the bottoms of their glasses on the long chance that they could get another little peek at it. Trexler found himself renewed by the remembrance that what he wanted was at once great and microscopic, and that although it borrowed from the nature of large deeds and of youthful love and of old songs and early intimations, it was not any one of these things, and that it had not been isolated or pinned down, and that a man who attempted to define it in the privacy of a doctor's office would fall flat on his face.”
― E.B. White, The Second Tree from the Corner

“Actually the city editor was one of the gentlest, most soft-spoken men I have ever encountered, and he did me a service I have always been grateful for. I got stuck one day on a story and finally, with the desperation of youth, I took my problem to him, although it seemed cheeky to bother him. How was I to express a certain thing? … I asked him how I could get around my difficulty.

He thought for a minute. Then he said, ‘Just say the words’.”
― E.B. White, The Second Tree from the Corner