Quotable: Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

One of the habits a literature lover like me loves to do is  to commit the quotes from the books he/ she has read to memory and  ponder over  them by heart at the same time . In doing so is like what a bright person puts it, “Words are my livelihood.”

As  a book blogger, I would love to  include a new menu and category on all quotes I  have highlighted and dog-eared in all the books I have read under the pretext of  education.

So, let me start with Charlotte’s Web  by E. B. White I read recently.

Quote # 1

 "I don't want to die!
 Save me, somebody!
 Save me!"

I won’t forget this heart-breaking  line from Wilbur. I put it down for a while to blink my tears away. Imagine if you were a pig aware of this savagery. Gee, blood-curdling scene. I remembered how Franz Kafka described   death  in his short story In the Penal Colony.  His description was so bloody and gory that  you could even imagine the small details how the  convict feels while his body is being dissembled.

Quote # 2 

“What do you mean less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something - even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.”

Wilbur, the porcupine protagonist, philosophized when the lamb in the barn refused to play with him.

The line is so deep that I wanted to beat my head against the wall.I turned it over and over until at my wits’ end. In the end, it turned out to be the apotheosis of the ancient question, ” Why is there something rather than nothing.”

Quote # 3

“Don't write about Man; write about a man.”

The word man in uppercase must be referring to God whereas the one in lower case to human. Another animal in the story advises  Wilbur to whom he should turn for help since he is said to be killed by Christmastime. Does this line have something to do with the author’s  spirituality or probably with his other acquaintances’? There is nothing new to this for an atheist like me. It is not a big deal but for a holier-than-thou.

Quote # 4

 “You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.”

 One of the moving parts in the story-existential. Wilbur asked why Charlotte is so kind to him.

Quote # 5

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

You can apply Emmanuel Kant’s philosophy to this line if you want to  get at it.

Quote # 6

 “I don't understand it, and I don't like what I don't understand.”

Sometimes, the cliche , “ Ignorance is bliss.”  is debatable.

Quote # 7

 “When your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep”

 A witty line when Wilbur has been obsessed about his ominous death before the Christmastime.

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Most of the quotes above  in the book deal with life and friendship.

Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful day, lovely people! ^_^