Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Carl Sandburg Novelist

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Jan 6, 1878
  • Died: Jul 22, 1967

Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, writer and editor best known for poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat".

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

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

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

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

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

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

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

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

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