The image that fiction presents is purged of the distractions, confusions and accidents of ordinary life. Robert Penn Warren More Quotes by Robert Penn Warren More Quotes From Robert Penn Warren It is human defect — to try to know oneself by the self of another. Robert Penn Warren defects self trying There was nothing particularly wrong with them; they were just the ordinary garden variety of human garbage. Robert Penn Warren garbage garden ordinary ...a man does not die for words. He dies for his relation to them. Robert Penn Warren doe relation men Tell me a story. Robert Penn Warren delight distance names History is all explained by geography. Robert Penn Warren geography Just tell 'em you're gonna soak the fat boys and forget the rest of the tax stuff...Willie, make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em mad, even mad at you. Stir them up and they'll love it and come back for more, but, for heaven's sakes, don't try to improve their minds. Robert Penn Warren mad laughing boys Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something (All The King's Men) Robert Penn Warren sin kings men America was based on a big promise--a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that's quite a problem--particularly when you've got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America--you see, that saddle's going to jump now and then and it pricks. Robert Penn Warren self children america A young man's ambition - to get along in the world and make a place for himself - half your life goes that way, till you're 45 or 50. Then, if you're lucky, you make terms with life, you get released. Robert Penn Warren ambition age men Most writers are trying to find what they think or feel. . . not simply working from the given, but toward the given, saying the unsayable and steadily asking, "What do I really feel about this? Robert Penn Warren asking trying thinking Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selflessness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made? Robert Penn Warren break-out self happiness The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. Robert Penn Warren poetry meaningful men In separateness only does love learn definition. Robert Penn Warren separateness definitions doe To be an American is not...a matter of blood; it is a matter of an idea--and history is the image of that idea. Robert Penn Warren matter blood ideas A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us. It makes us ask whether our very achievements are not ironical counterpoint and contrast to our fundamental failures. Robert Penn Warren distance history past Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write. Robert Penn Warren real writing needs Your business as a writer is not to illustrate virtue but to show how a fellow may move toward it or away from it. Robert Penn Warren vices may moving A symbol serves to combine heart and intellect. Robert Penn Warren intellect symbols heart They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people. Robert Penn Warren term relation people The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it. Robert Penn Warren scratches annoying writing
