Explore Quotes by Carl Sandburg

I couldn't see myself filling some definite niche in what is called a career. This was all misty.

I decided I would go to Chicago and try my luck as a writer after those eight months as a fireman.

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

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

My room for books and study or for sitting and thinking about nothing in particular to see what would happen was at the end of a hall.

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

Shame is the feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.

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

Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us, and only for those who were willing to fail are the dangers and splendors of life.

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

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.

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

Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.

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

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

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

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

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

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

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