Edna Ferber Quotes & Sayings

I never would just open a door and walk through, I had to bust it down for the hell of it. I just naturally liked doing things the hard way. — Edna Ferber

Writing, to be memorable, must be done in a state of impassioned serenity. — Edna Ferber

A placated bully is a hand-fed bully. — Edna Ferber

Emma McChesney was engaged in that nerve-wracking process known as getting things out of the way. When Emma McChesney aimed to get things out of the way she did not use a shovel; she used a road-drag. — Edna Ferber

What could be more exciting! As long as you're fascinated and as long as you keep on fighting the things you think are wrong, you're living. It isn't the evil people in the world who do the most harm. It's the sweet do-nothings that can destroy us. — Edna Ferber

A story must simmer in its own juice for months or even years before it's ready to serve. — Edna Ferber

People permit life to slide past them like a deft pickpocket, their purse-not yet missed and now too late-in his hand. — Edna Ferber

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never! — Edna Ferber

The writer is a writer because he cannot help it. It is a compulsion. — Edna Ferber

The leading lady had a large and saving sense of humor. But there is nothing that blunts the sense of humor more quickly than a few months of one-night stands. Even O. Henry could have seen nothing funny about that room. — Edna Ferber

Don't you hate people who say they're not complaining and then complain? — Edna Ferber

The goat's business is none of the sheep's concern. — Edna Ferber

I'm not much to look at", replied Elizabeth, "but I'm beautiful inside. — Edna Ferber

Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way. — Edna Ferber

Any man who can look handsome in a dirty baseball suit is an Adonis. There is something about the baggy pants, and the Micawber-shaped collar, and the skull-fitting cap, and the foot or so of tan, or blue, or pink undershirt sleeve sticking out at the arms, that just naturally kills a man's best points. — Edna Ferber

Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death. — Edna Ferber

You can run, but what are you running from? Your life? You can't run away from your life. — Edna Ferber

She read absorbedly books found in boarding-house parlours, in hotels, in such public libraries as the times afforded. She was alone for hours a day, daily. Frequently her father, fearful of loneliness for her, brought her an armful of books and she had an orgy, dipping and swooping about among them in a sort of gourmand's ecstasy of indecision. In this way, at fifteen, she knew the writings of Byron, Jane Austen, Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Felicia Hemans. Not to speak of Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth, Bertha M. Clay, and that good fairy of the scullery, the Fireside Companion, in whose pages factory girls and dukes were brought together as inevitably as steak and onions. These last were, of course, the result of Selina's mode of living, and were loaned to her by kind-hearted landladies, chambermaids, and waitresses all the way from California to New York. — Edna Ferber

Awake and asleep the novel is with you, dogging your footsteps. Strange formless bits of material float out from the ether about you and attach themselves to the main body of the story as though they had hung suspended in air for years, waiting. — Edna Ferber

A whole roomful of Jews is like a charged battery. The vitality sparks seem to fly, and frequently the result is a short circuit. — Edna Ferber

He sat looking down at his hands
his fine strong unscarred hands. Suddenly and unreasonably he thought of another pair of hands
his mother's
with the knuckles enlarged, the skin broken
expressive
her life written on them. Scars. She had them. — Edna Ferber

The feminine in the man is the sugar in the whisky. The masculine in the woman is the yeast in the bread. Without these ingredients the result is flat, without tang or flavor. — Edna Ferber

I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. — Edna Ferber

In his way and in his day he was a very modern father. "I want you to see all kinds," he would say to her. "I want you to realize that this whole thing is just a grand adventure. A fine show. The trick is to play in it and look at it at the same time."
"What whole thing?"
"Living. All mixed up. The more kinds of people you see, and the more things you do, and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they're not pleasant things. That's living.... — Edna Ferber

We no longer build fireplaces for physical warmth-we build them for the warmth of the soul; we build them to dream by, to hope by, to home by. — Edna Ferber

But almost any place is Baghdad if you don't know what will happen in it. — Edna Ferber

America
rather, the United States
seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, over-friendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The chuckle among the nations of the world. — Edna Ferber

I like any place that isn't here. — Edna Ferber

A closed mind is a dying mind. — Edna Ferber

A woman can look both moral and exciting ... if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle. — Edna Ferber

Big doesn't necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren't better than violets. — Edna Ferber

It's been my experience," observed Emma McChesney, "that when a firm condescends to pay a woman twice as much as a man, that means she's worth six times as much. — Edna Ferber

Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight. — Edna Ferber

It was part of theTexas ritual? We know about champagne and caviar but we talk hog and hominy. — Edna Ferber

Then there were long, lazy summer afternoons when there was nothing to do but read. And dream. And watch the town go by to supper. I think that is why our great men and women so often have sprung from small towns, or villages. They have had time to dream in their adolescence. No cars to catch, no matinees, no city streets, none of the teeming, empty, energy-consuming occupations of the city child. Little that is competitive, much that is unconsciously absorbed at the most impressionable period, long evenings for reading, long afternoons in the fields or woods. — Edna Ferber

It's fun telling you tall Texas tales. You always look like a little girl who's hearing Cinderella for the first time. — Edna Ferber

Celebratin' New Year's Eve is like eatin' oranges. You got to let go your dignity t' really enjoy 'em. — Edna Ferber

Nicknames are fond names. We do not give them to people we dislike. — Edna Ferber

The small town smart set is deadly serious about its smartness. — Edna Ferber

Opinion! If every one had so little tact as to give their true opinion when it was asked this would be a miserable world. — Edna Ferber

A writer's working hours are his waking hours. He is working as long as he is conscious and frequently when he isn't. — Edna Ferber

No one in the United States has the right to own millions of acres of American land, I don't care how they came by it. — Edna Ferber

The very rich and the very social are, often, the very stuffy. — Edna Ferber

If it's freedom you want, come to Texas. No one there tells you what to do and how you have to do it. — Edna Ferber

Where Chicago's vast and growing Negro population shifted and moved and stretched its great limbs ominously, reaching out and out in protest and overflowing the bounds that irked it. Her serene face and her quiet manner, her bland interest and friendly look protected her. — Edna Ferber

Jane Austen. Anyway, I'm not — Edna Ferber

I think in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion, dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice-they all make fine fuel. — Edna Ferber

It's difficult to write a really good short story because it must be a complete and finished reflection of life with only a few words to use as tools. There isn't time for bad writing in a short story. — Edna Ferber

Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle. — Edna Ferber

There are two ways of doing battle against Disgrace. You may live it down; or you may run away from it and hide. The first method is heart-breaking, but sure. The second cannot be relied upon because of the uncomfortable way Disgrace has of turning up at your heels. — Edna Ferber

Any garment which is cut to fit you is much more becoming, even if it is not so splendid as a garment which has been cut to fit somebody not of your stature. — Edna Ferber

People in big empty places are likely to behave very much as the gods did on Olympus. — Edna Ferber

I sometimes wonder ... if the land is not destroying the people who inhabit it as the people who inhabit it are destroying the land. A magic continent, a Peculiar Treasure, stuffed with riches, millions in it are starving in the midst of plenty. — Edna Ferber

Life cannot defeat a writer who is in love with writing - for life itself is a writer's love until death. — Edna Ferber

Whoever said love conquers all was a fool. Because almost everything conquers love - or tries to. — Edna Ferber

Christmas is not a season. It is a feeling. — Edna Ferber

If American politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there's something wrong with American politics. — Edna Ferber

Anything can have happened in Oklahoma. Practically everything has. — Edna Ferber

It's terrible to realize you don't learn how to live until you're ready to die, and then it's too late. — Edna Ferber

The astronomers tell us that other planets are gifted with two - four - even nine lavish moons. Imagine the romantic possibilities of nine moons. — Edna Ferber

I am not belittling the brave pioneer men but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours. — Edna Ferber

All the difference in the world between the movies and the thrill I get out of a play at the theater. Ay, yes! Like fooling around with paper dolls when you could be playing with a real live baby. — Edna Ferber

Spring ... made fair false promises which summer was called upon to keep. — Edna Ferber

One can summon courage and fortitude to face tragedy; irritations and frustrations are a cloud of mosquitoes that nip and sting and drive one frantic. — Edna Ferber

Does one eat peanuts at a ball game?' 'It ain't hardly legal if you don't. — Edna Ferber

That just goes to show, remarked Pearlie, that you must never judge a woman in a kimono or a bathing suit. — Edna Ferber

Bizarre as was the name she bore, Kim Ravenal always said she was thankful it had been no worse. — Edna Ferber

Men often marry their mothers. — Edna Ferber

When a new post-war generation has grown to puberty and to youth and to manhood and womanhood, it should read, and it should be realistically told, of the futility, the idiocy, the utter depravity of war. For that matter, this instruction could begin at the age of six with the taking of those toy guns out of those toy holsters and throwing them in the ash-cans where they belong. — Edna Ferber

Texas history is a varied, tempestuous, and vast as the state itself. Texas yesterday is unbelievable, but no more incredible than Texas today. Today's Texas is exhilarating, exasperating, violent, charming, horrible, delightful, alive. — Edna Ferber

Roast beef, medium, is not only a food. It is a philosophy. — Edna Ferber

Your idea of bliss is to wake up on a Monday morning knowing you haven't a single engagement for the entire week. You are cradled in a white paper cocoon tied up with typewriter ribbon. — Edna Ferber

And in the stillness of the room you heard the roar and howl and crash of the great river whose flood had caught them land shaken them and brought Magnolia Ravenal to bed ahead of her time. — Edna Ferber

If men ever discovered how tough women actually are, they would be scared to death. — Edna Ferber

Writers of novels are so busy being solitary that they haven't time to meet one another. But then, a writer learns nothing from a writer, conversationally. If a writer has anything witty, profound or quotable to say he doesn't say it. He's no fool. He writes it. — Edna Ferber

But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that. — Edna Ferber

About mistakes it's funny. You got to make your own; and not only that, if you try to keep people from making theirs they get mad. — Edna Ferber

It sounds so far away and different. I like different places. I like any places that isn't here. — Edna Ferber

To be alive is a fine thing. It is the finest thing in the world, though hazardous. It is a unique thing. It happens only once in a lifetime. To be alive, to know consciously that you are alive, and to relish that knowledge
this is a kind of magic. Or it may be a kind of madness, exhilarating but harmless. — Edna Ferber

Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. — Edna Ferber

Home isn't always the place where you were born and bred. Home is the place where your everyday clothes are, and where somebody or something needs you. — Edna Ferber

Take Texas the way Texas takes bourbon. Straight. It goes down easier. — Edna Ferber

There is an interesting resemblance in the speeches of dictators, no matter what country they may hail from or what language they may speak. — Edna Ferber

Here in Texas maybe we've got into the habit of confusing bigness with greatness. — Edna Ferber

I'm tired of hearing you men say that this and that and the other isn't woman's work. Any work is woman's work that a woman can do well. — Edna Ferber

Sweat and blood and health and youth go into every cabbage. Did you know that, Julie? One doesn't despise them as food, knowing that. — Edna Ferber

I don't know what it is that makes a writer go to his desk in his shut-off room day after day after year after year unless it is the sure knowledge that not to have done the daily stint of writing that day is infinitely more agonizing than to write. — Edna Ferber

A life like this develops the comedy sense. You can't play tragedy while you're living it. — Edna Ferber

Many earnest young writers with a flow of adjectives and a passion for detail have attempted to describe the quiet of a great city at night, when a few million people within it are sleeping, or ought to be. They work in the clang of a distant owl car, and the roar of an occasional "L" train, and the hollow echo of the footsteps of the late passer-by. They go elaborately into description, and are strong on the brooding hush, but the thing has never been done satisfactorily. — Edna Ferber

Now gae your wa'sTho'anes as gude As ever happit flesh and blude, Yet part we maunthe case sae hard is, Amang the writers and the bardies That lang they'll brook the auld I trow, Or neibours cry,'Weel brook the new'. — Edna Ferber

Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded? Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laugher and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt? — Edna Ferber

But I have felt that to be a Jew was, in some ways at least, to be especially privileged. — Edna Ferber

Books should be cherished, like children, books are for the next generation, like children, like history. — Edna Ferber

You lose in the end unless you know how the wheel is fixed or can fix it yourself. — Edna Ferber

I never go to weddings. Waste of time. Person can get married a dozen times. Lots of folks do. Family like ours, know everybody in the state of Texas and around outside, why, you could spend your life going to weddings. But a funeral, that's different. You only die once. — Edna Ferber

Imported actors, like certain wines, sometimes do not stand the ocean trip. This can be as true of American actors in Europe as it is of European actors in America. — Edna Ferber

There are people who have a penchant for cities-more than that, a talent for them, a gift of sensing them, of feeling their rhythm and pulsebeats, as others have a highly developed music sense, or color reaction. It is a thing that cannot be acquired. — Edna Ferber

There are ... just two kinds of girls. Those who go down town Saturday nights, and those who don't. — Edna Ferber

A closed country is a dying country... A closed mind is a dying mind.' from a radio broadcast in 1947 — Edna Ferber

A stricken tree, a living thing, so beautiful, so dignified, so admirable in its potential longevity, is, next to man, perhaps the most touching of wounded objects. — Edna Ferber