Sherwood Anderson was a successful business owner in Ohio, before he had a nervous breakdown which led him to abandon his family and business to become a novelist and short story writer. Known for his self-divulging and subjective works, Anderson published ‘Winesburg, Ohio’; which was a series of interrelated short stories. Later, he went on to release ‘Puzzled America’, ‘Death in the Woods’ and ‘Kit Brandon: A Portrait’. He was one of the first essayists to establish theories from Freudian analysis and psychology in his work. Instead of focusing on storylines and plot, he emphasized on using non-complex, accurate and unsentimental style to expose inner feelings of anger, void and emptiness in the lives of the characters. His books did reasonably well but ‘Dark Laughter’ was his only bestseller. Majority of his work was released posthumously. In honor of Anderson, his final residence was designated as National Historic Landmark. He expressed his thoughts and beliefs on several issues and subjects through his writing and his characters. Read through these quotes and sayings by Sherwood Anderson on dreams, loneliness, future, ambition, regret, uncertainties, marriage, travel and life.
You must try to forget all you have learned,' said the old man. 'You must begin to dream. From this time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices.
Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.
Sherwood Anderson
I am a lover and have not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who understand that.
There is within every human being a deep well of thinking over which a heavy iron lid is kept clamped.
Sherwood Anderson
Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy.
Sherwood Anderson
In youth there are always two forces fighting in people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and remembers
Sherwood Anderson
I wanted to run away from everything but I wanted to run towards something too. Don't you see, dear, how it was?
I may stay here in this town another day or I may go on to another town. No one knows where I am. I am taking this bath in life, as you see, and when I have had enough of it I shall go home feeling refreshed.
She is always pretending she loves me, but look at her now. Am I in her thoughts? Is there a tender look in her eyes? Is she dreaming of me as she walks along the streets?
Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved.
Sherwood Anderson
It is this - that everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified. That's what I want to say. Don't you forget that. Whatever happens, don't you dare let yourself forget.
One does so hate to admit that the average woman is kinder, finer, more quick of sympathy and on the whole so much more first class than the average man.
Sherwood Anderson
How dirty she was, how thin, what a wild look she had! I have never seen a wilder-looking creature. Her eyes were bright. They were like the eyes of a wild animal.
There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood.
More absurdity in myself, endless absurdities. My own childishness sometimes amused me. Would it amuse others? Were others like myself, hopelessly childish?
It might be that women who have been
nurses should not marry physicians. They have too much respect for physicians, are taught
to have too much respect
Robert Ingersoll came to [a small Midwest town] to speak . . . , and after he had gone the question of the divinity of Christ for months occupied the minds of the citizens.
Sherwood Anderson
Wait and wait. Most people's lives are spent waiting.
Sherwood Anderson
Most boys have seasons of wishing they could die gloriously instead of just being grocery clerks and going on with their humdrum lives.
