List of Theodore Dreiser Quotes

Dreiser Wanted To Write The Next Great American Novel, And His Desperation Pervades [ Sister Carrie ] Like An Unsavory Pit Stain.

A Real Flame Of Love Is A Subtle Thing. It Burns As A Will-o'-the-wisp, Dancing Onward To Fairy Lands Of Delight. It Roars As A Furnace. Too Often Jealousy Is The Quality Upon Which It Feeds.

When A Man, However Passively, Becomes An Obstacle To The Fulfillment Of A Woman's Desires, He Becomes An Odious Thing In Her Eyes, - Or Will, Given Time Enough.

I Have Seen Youths Bright Eyed And Fair Groping After Bubbles In Rapture, And Conceiving Them Diamonds And The Glitter Of Fine Jewels, Until Their Hand Closed Over A Something That Was Not To Be Felt Nor Longer Seen, Mere Colored Air.

Nature, Machine-like, Works Definitely And Heartlessly, If In The Main Beautifully. Hence, If We, As Individuals, Do Not Make This Dream Of A God Or What He Stands For Us Real In Our Thoughts And Deeds, Then He Is Not Real Or True.

Theodore Dreiser Should Ought To Write Nicer.

Your Writer, Your Scientist, Your Chief Official, All Have Lost The Power To Revive The Early Illusion Concerning Fame And High Place. Their Beauty And Delight Is Like The Mirage In The Heavens, Only Plain To The Eye Outside; Within Is Nothing.

I Sacrifice To The God Of Beauty — The Impulse To Beauty In Nature. Here Are Flowers. Here Is Wine Spilled On The Floor. I Will Burn Incense & Myrhh. I Will Kneel & Strike My Breast & Touch The Dust With My Forehead. I Will I Will! Only Do Not Forsake Me, Oh God Of Beauty.

Innate Sensuousness Rarely Has Any Desire For Accuracy, No Desire For Precise Information. It Basks In Sunshine, Bathes In Color, Dwells In A Sense Of The Impressive And The Gorgeous, And Rests There. Accuracy Is Not Necessary Except In The Case Of Aggressive, Acquisitive Natures, When It Manifests Itself In A Desire To Seize. True Controlling Sensuousness Cannot Be Manifested In The Most Active Dispositions, Nor Again In The Most Accurate.

The Irish Are A Philosophic As Well As A Practical Race. Their First And Strongest Impulse Is To Make The Best Of A Bad Situation To Put A Better Face On Evil Than It Normally Wears.

When A Girl Leaves Her Home At Eighteen, She Does One Of Two Things. Either She Falls Into Saving Hands And Becomes Better, Or She Rapidly Assumes The Cosmopolitan Standard Of Virtue And Becomes Worse

How Dismal Is Progress Without Publicity.