Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Andersonwas an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and Elyria, Ohio. In 1912, Anderson had a nervous breakdown that led him to abandon his business and family to become a writer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 September 1876
CityCamden, OH
CountryUnited States of America
Would it not be better to have it understood that realism, in so far as the word means reality to life, is always bad art -- although it may possibly be very good journalism?
Work accomplished means little. It is in the past. What we all want is the glorious and living present.
Realism in so far as it means Reality to life is always bad art.
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.
All good New Orleanians go to look at the Mississippi at least once a day. At night it is like creeping into a dark bedroom to look at a sleeping child--something of that sort--gives you the same warm nice feeling, I mean.
Next to occupation is the building up of good taste. That is difficult, slow work. Few achieve it. It means all the difference in the world in the end.
Draw things that have some meaning to you. An apple, what does it mean? The object drawn doesn't matter so much. It's what you feel about it, what it means to you. A masterpiece could be made of a dish of turnips.
That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were truths and they were all beautiful.
Many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg.
In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind of each was the same thought. "I have come to this lonely place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt.
You can make it all right if you will only be satisfied to remain small," I told myself. I had to keep saying it over and over to myself. "Be little. Don't try to be big. Work under the guns. Be a little worm in the fair apple of life.
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.
People keep on getting married. Evidently hope is eternal in the human breast.
It was a cold day but the sun was out and the trees were like great bonfires against gray distant fields and hills.