Carl Sandburg Quotes | GloryQuotes

Carl Sandburg Quotes About Writing

Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.

I can remember only a few of the strange and curious words now dead but living and spoken by the English people a thousand years ago.

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

I decided I would go to Chicago and try my luck as a writer after those eight months as a fireman.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.

When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.

Carl Sandburg Quotes About Life

Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.

Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us, and only for those who were willing to fail are the dangers and splendors of life.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.

More Quotes by Carl Sandburg

To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

We had two grand antique professors who had been teaching at Lombard since before I was born.

The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.

The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.

Shame is the feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.

I couldn't see myself filling some definite niche in what is called a career. This was all misty.

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.

In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.

I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.

I have become infected, now that I see how beautifully a book is coming out of all this.

I had been keeping an off eye on the advertising field, thinking I might become an idea man and a copywriter.

We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.

A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.

All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.

You remember some bedrooms you have slept in. There are bedrooms you like to remember and others you would like to forget.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.

Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

All politicians should have 3 hats - one to throw into the ring, one to talk through, and one to pull rabbits out of if elected.

I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.

Calling it off comes easy enough if you haven't told the girl you are smitten with her.

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.

My room for books and study or for sitting and thinking about nothing in particular to see what would happen was at the end of a hall.

We don't have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.

Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.

I fell in love, not deep, but I fell several times and then fell out.

I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends.

There are 10 men in me and I do not know or understand one of them.

Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder.

The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.

Love your neighbor as yourself; but don't take down the fence.

I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.

There have been as many varieties of socialists as there are wild birds that fly in the woods and sometimes go up and on through the clouds.

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

I have often wondered what it is an old building can do to you when you happen to know a little about things that went on long ago in that building.

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.

When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post mortems; and remember, no one can get the jump on the future.

Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.

I took to wearing a black tie known as the Ascot, with long drooping ends. I had seen pictures of painters, sculptors, poets, wearing this style of tie.

The greatest cunning is to have none at all.

To be a good loser is to learn how to win.

Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed.

Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.

Browse 74 quotes attributed to Carl Sandburg, listed in the source data as a American Poet, organized around themes such as Writing, Life, Time. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.