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Sherwood Anderson

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

“Learn to draw. Try to make your hand so unconsciously adept that it will put down what you feel without your having to think of your hands. Then you can think of the thing before you.”

Thinking Feels Trying Hands Draws Drawing Think Of You Adept

Book:The Portable Sherwood Anderson

Source: The Portable Sherwood Anderson

“The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces. There is no special trick about writing, or painting either. I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it.”

Thinking Writing Years Morning Special Produce Painting Fool Decided Experience Tricks Articles Masterpiece Solidity

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

“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

“The father spent his time talking and thinking of religion. He proclaimed himself an agnostic and was so absorbed in destroying the ideas of God that had crept into the minds of his neighbors that he never saw God manifesting himself in the little child that, half forgotten, lived here and there on the bounty of her dead mother's relatives.”

Thinking Mind Children Littles Ideas Mother Father Half Talking Saws Forgotten Neighbor Manifest Destroying Agnostic Here And There Bounty Dead Mother

Book:Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“Sometimes I think we Americans are the loneliest people in the world. To be sure, we hunger for the power of affection, the self-acceptance that gives life. It is the oldest and strongest hunger in the world. But hungering is not enough.”

People Thinking World Giving Self Sometimes Enough Acceptance Hunger Affection Strongest Self Acceptance

Book:The Sherwood Anderson reader

Source: The Sherwood Anderson reader

“I think the whole glory of writing lies in the fact that it forces us out of ourselves and into the lives of others.”

Thinking Writing Whole Facts Lying Force Glory Lives Of Others

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

“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

“There is within every human being a deep well of thinking over which a heavy iron lid is kept clamped.”

Thinking Humans Wells Human Beings Heavy Iron

Author:Sherwood Anderson

“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

“I think that those of us who are what are called intellectuals make a terrible mistake in overvaluing the yen we have for the arts, books, etc. There is a sweet, fine quality in life that has nothing to do with this, and more and more I find myself valuing myself with those people.”

People Thinking Art Book Mistake Quality Sweet Fine Terrible Intellectual Etc

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