Erskine Caldwell Quotes & Sayings

To me there is no such thing as creative writing. It's either good writing, whatever the subject, or it's not creative. — Erskine Caldwell

I think acceptance of human rights is going to progress from one day to the next. I don't think there's going to be any violent revolution about the whole thing anywhere. Of course, it looks like it every once in a while. You hear about it on television and in newspapers: riots here and there. But that is a passing phase. — Erskine Caldwell

You don't love Buck. If you did, you'd have four kids by now. Wouldn't you? Now wouldn't you? A woman like you ... — Erskine Caldwell

Many Southern writers must have learned the art of storytelling from listening to oral tales. I did. It gave me the knowledge that the simplest incident can make a story. — Erskine Caldwell

He still could not understand why he had nothing, and would never have anything, and there was no one who knew and who could tell him. It was the unsolved mystery of his life. — Erskine Caldwell

I think you must remember that a writer is a simple-minded person to begin with and go on that basis. He's not a great mind, he's not a great thinker, he's not a great philosopher, he's a story-teller. — Erskine Caldwell

Preachers has got to preach against something. It wouldn't do them no good to preach for everything. They got to be against something every time. — Erskine Caldwell

There were always well-developed plans in Jeeter's mind for the things he intended doing; but somehow he never got around to doing them. One day led to the next, and it was much more easy to say he would wait until tomorrow. When that day arrived, he invariably postponed action until a more convenient time. Things had been going along in that easy way for almost a lifetime now; nevertheless, — Erskine Caldwell

I was not a writer to begin with; I was a listener. — Erskine Caldwell

I'm not interested in plots. I'm interested only in the characterization of people and what they do. — Erskine Caldwell

Influence is a very tenuous matter. I try to avoid it in every respect. I don't want to be influenced by anybody. — Erskine Caldwell