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Sherwood Anderson Quotes

Novelist

American novelist known for his profound insights into the lives of the American middle class. Anderson's works often focus on the inner world and social status of ordinary people, and his style is concise and direct, which has had a profound impact on American literature.

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All Men People Knows Littles Thinking Writing Ifs Art Life Mean World Long Made Moments Tree Trying Want Apples Father Feels

Famous Sherwood Anderson Quotes

“Above all avoid taking the advice of men who have no brains and do not know what they are talking about.”

Knows Men Brain Talking Advice

Book:Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

Source: Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

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

Knows Men Writing Littles Knowledge Painting Painter Amazed Manufacturing Merchants

Book:Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

Source: Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

“Whereas God, for reasons of His own, sometimes chooses to let the machine answer. 'The Supreme Being is unavailable to come to the phone at this time, but He wants you to know what your call is important to Him. In the meantime, for sins of pride, press one. For avarice, press two.”

Knows Want Two Important Sometimes Reason Religion Sin Answers Pride Machines Presses Phones Supreme Avarice Supreme Being Sin Of Pride

Author:Sherwood Anderson

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

People Thinking Knows Mere Peddler

Book:Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories: Winesburg, Ohio / The Triumph of the Egg / Horses and Men / Death in the Woods / Uncollected Stories (Library of America #235)

Source: Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories: Winesburg, Ohio / The Triumph of the Egg / Horses and Men / Death in the Woods / Uncollected Stories (Library of America #235)

“There is a note that comes into the human voice by which you may know real weariness. It comes when one has been trying with all his heart and soul to think his way along some difficult road of thought. Of a sudden he finds himself unable to go on. Something within him stops. A tiny explosion takes place. He bursts into words and talks, perhaps foolishly. Little side currents of his nature he didn't know were there run out and get themselves expressed. It is at such times that a man boasts, uses big words, makes a fool of himself in general.”

Source: Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories

“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. I don't know. I guess I don't care much. I just want to work and keep quiet. That's all I've got in mind.”

Knows Want Mind Kind Care Quiet Don't Care I Don't Care Shops Mechanic

Book:Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“I am a little thing, a tiny little thing on the vast prairies. I know nothing. My mouth is dirty. I cannot tell what I want. My feet are sunk in the black swampy land, but I am a lover. I love life. In the end love shall save me.”

Knows Want Littles Ends Black Feet Land Lovers Mouths Tiny Dirty Love Life Little Things Save Me Prairie I Love Life

Book:Mid-American Chants

Source: Mid-American Chants

“Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all of the known history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk of art and are passionately,almost feverishly, in earnest about it. They think it matters much more than it does.”

Thinking Knows World Doe Art Matter Artist Rooms Talking Known Earnest World History

Book:Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.”

Knows Apples Sweetness Twisted

Book:Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-town Life

Source: Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-town Life

“On the trees are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side of the apple has been gathered all its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.”

Knows Looks Littles Has Beens Hands Running Sides Tree Doctors Rounds Apples Pockets Rejected Sweetness Delicious Filling Twisted Knuckles

Book:Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“I am a lover and have not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who understand that.”

Ifs Knows Mean Enough Bigs Found Realizing Lovers Destruction Inevitable

Book:Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“I know about her, although she has never crossed my path," he said softly. "I know about her struggles and her defeats. It is because of her defeats that she is to me the lovely one. Out of her defeats she has been born a new quality in woman. I have a name for it. I call it Tandy. I made up the name when I was a true dreamer and before my body became vile. It is the quality of being strong to be loved. It is something men need from women and that they do not get.”

Knows Men Needs Has Beens Made Said Body Names Strong Born Quality Struggle Path Defeat Lovely Dreamer

Book:Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories: Winesburg, Ohio / The Triumph of the Egg / Horses and Men / Death in the Woods / Uncollected Stories (Library of America #235)

Source: Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories: Winesburg, Ohio / The Triumph of the Egg / Horses and Men / Death in the Woods / Uncollected Stories (Library of America #235)

“As time passed and he grew to know people better, he began to think of himself as an extraordinary man, one set apart from his fellows. He wanted terribly to make his life a thing of great importance, and as he looked about at his fellow men and saw how like clods they lived it seemed to him that he could not bear to become also such a clod.”

People Thinking Knows Men Wanted Saws Grew Bears Importance Fellows Extraordinary Fellow Man

Book:Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“I think you know that when an American stays away from New York too long something happens to him. Perhaps he becomes a little provincial, a little dead and afraid.”

Thinking Knows Littles Long Happens New York Things Happen

Author:Sherwood Anderson