Quotes By Carl Sandburg

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

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

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

I stayed away from mathematics not so much because I knew it would be hard work as because of the amount of time I knew it would take, hours spent in a field where I was not a natural.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering.

Often I look back and see that I had been many kinds of a fool-and that I had been happy in being this or that kind of fool.

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

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

I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.

Nothing happens unless first we dream.

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.

There was always the consolation that if I didn't like what I wrote I could throw it away or burn it.

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

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.

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

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

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

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

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

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.

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

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

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