I've always liked a good quotation, and used to keep a journal of them back in high school. Here's one from E.B. White that a former co-worker sent around the office:

"I wake up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day a little difficult."

I ran across it while emptying out my inbox (21 to go!) and figured this would make a good sidebar quotation. But what's the source? Google gave me 160,000 hits but none of them primary sources. Fortunately, there's Wikiquote, which provides both the accurate quotation and its source, a New York Times interview with White in 1969 by one Israel Shenker. ¹ Here's the actual quotation:

"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 (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

Where did the original turn into the inspirational-poster version? Who decided to mess with White -- who wrote the book on writing? We may never know. The only hit on both phrases was this page of user-submitted quotes which contains a third version:

"Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first."

Since the last two sentences aren't in the interview, where did they come from? That's easier to find; in an address right after 9/11, Mary Spilde, president of Lane Community College in Eugene, OR said the following:

E.B.White said, "every morning I awake torn between a desire to savor the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day." But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.

The last two sentences are clearly Ms. Spilde's, but someone took out the middle quote mark. Only 9 hits on this version, but who knows? Someday we may be quoting White as saying:

Woke up this morning. Hit the alarm clock. Should I save the world today? Or just have a hell of a good time? Must check my planner.

¹ White is presumably known to you, but probably not Shenker -- here's his obit. Read the part about pastrami at the end.

It is also indexed under: E. B. White | Errata | Quotations

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