Thomas Dreiser Quotes & Sayings

Ever since the days when such formidable mediocrities as Galsworthy, Dreiser, Tagore, Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland and Thomas Mann were being accepted as geniuses, I have been perplexed and amused by fabricated notions about so-called "great books." That, for instance, Mann's asinine "Death in Venice," or Pasternak's melodramatic, vilely written "Dr. Zhivago," or Faulkner's corn-cobby chronicles can be considered "masterpieces" or at least what journalists term "great books," is to me the sort of absurd delusion as when a hypnotized person makes love to a chair. My greatest masterpieces of twentieth century prose are, in this order: Joyce's "Ulysses"; Kafka's "Transformation"; Bely's "St. Petersburg," and the first half of Proust's fairy tale, "In Search of Lost Time. — Vladimir Nabokov

I would rather have it said, 'He lived usefully,' than, 'He died rich.' — Benjamin Franklin

I refused to have bookshelves, horrified that I'd feel compelled to organise the books in some regimented system - Dewey or alphabetical or worse - and so the books lived in stacks, some as tall as me, in the most subjective order I could invent.
Thus Nabokov lived between Gogol and Hemingway, cradled between the Old World and the New; Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Hardy were stacked together not for their chronological proximity but because they all reminded me in some way of dryness (though in Dreiser's case I think I was focused mainly on his name): George Eliot and Jane Austen shared a stack with Thackeray because all I had of his was Vanity Fair, and I thought that Becky Sharp would do best in the presence of ladies (and deep down I worried that if I put her next to David Copperfield, she might seduce him). — Rebecca Makkai

And that is how all wars are justified. Everyone thinks that God is on their side and that they are the ones that deserve to win. — David Bowick

We must be willing to say what the Bible says. — Alistair Begg

There are two kinds of climbers ... smart ones and dead ones. — Don Whillans

When you see the fire of hate, spread the tranquility of your ocean of love. — Debasish Mridha

There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound ... We're musical primitives. — Andy Warhol

Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so. — Theodore Roosevelt

That silence intimidates puzzles me. Silence is to me normal, comfortable." Later he added, "I will admit to feeling a little contempt for those who can't keep quiet. — Michael Finkel

Are you happy when you stick a needle in your vein? — Stevie Wonder

The worst thing in life is boredom. When people don't know what to do with themselves, they are very, very poor. — Alice Herz-Sommer

If we could view Muhammad as we do any other important historical figure we would surely consider him to be one of the greatest geniuses the world has known. — Karen Armstrong

In my younger days, when I was painted by the half-educated, loose and inaccurate ways women had, I used to say, "How much women need exact science" But since I have known some workers in science, I have now said, "How much science needs women" — Maria Mitchell