Sherwood Anderson

“How dirty she was, how thin, what a wild look she had! I have never seen a wilder-looking creature. Her eyes were…

— Sherwood Anderson

There is this thing called life. We live it, not as we intend or wish, but as we are driven on by…

— Sherwood Anderson

Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something…

— Sherwood Anderson

In youth there are always two forces fighting in people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and…

— Sherwood Anderson

Sometimes I think we Americans are the loneliest people in the world. To be sure, we hunger for the power of affection,…

— Sherwood Anderson

“...at bottom he did not believe the people wanted reform; they wanted a ten percent raise in wages. The public mind was…

— Sherwood Anderson

“ Robert Ingersoll came to [a small Midwest town] to speak . . . , and after he had gone the question…

— Sherwood Anderson

Next to occupation is the building up of good taste. That is difficult, slow work. Few achieve it. It means all the…

— Sherwood Anderson

In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as truth. Man made…

— Sherwood Anderson

“In the main street of Winesburg crowds filled the stores and sidewalks. Night came on, horses whinnied, the clerks in stores ran…

— Sherwood Anderson

“With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He…

— Sherwood Anderson

It is apparent that nations cannot exist for us. They are the playthings of children, such toys as children break from boredom…

— Sherwood Anderson

In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind…

— Sherwood Anderson

Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night,' he had said. 'You must not try to…

— Sherwood Anderson

“Doctor Parcival began to plead with George Willard. 'You must pay attention to me,' he urged. 'If something happens you will be…

— Sherwood Anderson

The eighteen years he has lived seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already he hears…

— Sherwood Anderson

The lives of people are like young trees in a forest. They are being choked by climbing vines. The vines are old…

— Sherwood Anderson

I'll do something, get into some kind of work where talk don't count. Maybe I'll just be a mechanic in a shop.…

— Sherwood Anderson

All of the people of my time were bound with chains. They had forgotten the long fields and the standing corn. They…

— Sherwood Anderson

You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not…

— Sherwood Anderson

There is a kind of shrewdness many men have that enables them to get money. It is the shrewdness of the fox…

— Sherwood Anderson

“It might be that women who have been nurses should not marry physicians. They have too much respect for physicians, are taught…

— Sherwood Anderson

I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I…

— Sherwood Anderson

Learn to draw. Try to make your hand so unconsciously adept that it will put down what you feel without your having…

— Sherwood Anderson

“It did not seem to them that anything that could happen in the future could blot out the wonder and beauty of…

— Sherwood Anderson

People who have few possessions cling tightly to those they have. That is one of the facts that make life so discouraging.

— Sherwood Anderson

I am constantly amazed at how little painters know about painting, writers about writing, merchants about business, manufacturers about manufacturing. Most men…

— Sherwood Anderson

Interest in the lives of others, the high evaluation of these lives, what are they but the overflow of the interest a…

— Sherwood Anderson

What's wrong with this egotism? If a man doesn't delight in himself and the force in him and feel that he and…

— Sherwood Anderson

“Their bodies were different as were the color of their eyes, the length of their noses and the circumstances of their existence,…

— Sherwood Anderson