E. B. White

The elevator boy in my hotel, after he has shut the grilled gate and started the car, always slips his hand through the bars of the gate so that as he passes each floor the sill-plate will give him a dangerous little kiss on the end of his finger. It is the only record he keeps of his fabulous travels. A doctor could probably tell him why he does it; but for that matter a doctor could probably tell me why when I pass through a long corridor I always kick lightly sideways with one foot so that it ticks the baseboard. A doctor could, but a doctor isn't going to. There are things about my life I don't wish to pry into and this is one of them.

-E.B. White, One Man's Meat p130


The first sign of spring here is when the ice breaks up in the inkwell at the post office. A month later the ice leaves the lakes. And a month after that the first of the summer visitors shows up and the tax collector's wife removes the town records from her Frigidaire and plugs it in for the summer.

-E.B. White, One Man's Meat p135