English En
  • Deutsche De
  • English En
  • Français Fr
  • Русский Ru

We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our marketing and analytics partners who may combine it with other information you've provided to them or which they've separately collected from you. You also may to see our Privacy Policy. By clicking the OK button below, you accept our cookies.

Authors:

Nelson Algren quotes

American Novelist March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981

Cite this Page: Citation

Quotes

A book, a true book, is the writer's confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings. Nelson Algren
Big-shot town, small-shot town, jet-propelled old-fashioned town, by old-world hands with new-world tools built into a place whose heartbeat carries farther than its shout, whose whispering in the night sounds less hollow than its roistering noontime laugh: they have builded a heavy-shouldered laughter here who went to work too young. Nelson Algren
The devil lives in a double-shot", Roman explains himself obscurely. "I got a great worm inside. Gnaws and gnaws. Every day I drown him and every day he gnaws. Help me drown the worm, fellas. Nelson Algren
He was falling between glacial walls, he didn't know how anyone could fall so far away from everyone else in the world. So far to fall, so cold all the way, so steep and dark between those morphine-coloured walls... Nelson Algren
Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards ... Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "When I burn please bury me deep. Somewhere on West Division..."
When I burn please bury me deep. Somewhere on West Division Street. Put a bottle beneat' my head'n a bottle beneat' my feet Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it..."
To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent. Nelson Algren
You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring."
Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring. Nelson Algren
...a city that was to live by night after the wilderness had passed. A city that was to forge out of steel and blood-red neon its own peculiar wilderness. Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put..."
Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity. Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "There's people in hell who want ice water."
There's people in hell who want ice water. Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "Never sleep with someone whose troubles are worse than your own."
Never sleep with someone whose troubles are worse than your own. Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty."
And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty. Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren quote: "There is no way of being a creative writer in America without..."
There is no way of being a creative writer in America without being a loser. Nelson Algren

Popular Author

Related Authors