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Work Accomplished Means Little. It Is In The Past. What We All Want Is The Glorious And Living Present.
-Sherwood Anderson
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Work Accomplished Means Little.

Sherwood Anderson
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Work Accomplished Means Little. It Is In The Past. What We All Want Is The Glorious And Living Present.

Understanding the Quote: "work accomplished means little. it is in the past. what we all..."

This quote by Sherwood Anderson reflects deeply on the theme of mean. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Mean, Past, Want, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Sherwood Anderson interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson is celebrated for insightful thoughts on mean and past. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Mean
Past
Want
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I Am Pregnant With Song. My Body Aches But Do Not Betray Me. I Will Sing Songs And Hide Them Away. I Will Tear Them Into Bits And Throw Them In The Street. The Streets Of My City Are Full Of Dark Holes. I Will Hide My Songs In The Holes Of The Streets.
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I Think That Those Of Us Who Are What Are Called Intellectuals Make A Terrible Mistake In Overvaluing The Yen We Have For The Arts, Books, Etc. There Is A Sweet, Fine Quality In Life That Has Nothing To Do With This, And More And More I Find Myself Valuing Myself With Those People.
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There Is Within Every Human Being A Deep Well Of Thinking Over Which A Heavy Iron Lid Is Kept Clamped.
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Next To Occupation Is The Building Up Of Good Taste. That Is Difficult, Slow Work. Few Achieve It. It Means All The Difference In The World In The End.
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You Can Make A Killing As A Playwright In America, But You Can't Make A Living.
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I Am Constantly Amazed At How Little Painters Know About Painting, Writers About Writing, Merchants About Business, Manufacturers About Manufacturing. Most Men Just Drift.
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Most People Are Afraid To Trust Their Imaginations And The Artist Is Not.
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I'll Do Something, Get Into Some Kind Of Work Where Talk Don't Count. Maybe I'll Just Be A Mechanic In A Shop. I Don't Know. I Guess I Don't Care Much. I Just Want To Work And Keep Quiet. That's All I've Got In Mind.
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I Had A World, And It Slipped Away From Me. The War Blew Up More Than The Bodies Of Men....it Blew Ideas Away.
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Draw Things That Have Some Meaning To You. An Apple, What Does It Mean? The Object Drawn Doesn't Matter So Much. It's What You Feel About It, What It Means To You. A Masterpiece Could Be Made Of A Dish Of Turnips.
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It Is All Right You're Saying You Do Not Need Other People, But There Are A Lot Of People Who Need You.
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You Can Make It All Right If You Will Only Be Satisfied To Remain Small," I Told Myself. I Had To Keep Saying It Over And Over To Myself. "be Little. Don't Try To Be Big. Work Under The Guns. Be A Little Worm In The Fair Apple Of Life.
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I Wanted To Run Away From Everything But I Wanted To Run Towards Something Too.
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The Lives Of People Are Like Young Trees In A Forest. They Are Being Choked By Climbing Vines. The Vines Are Old Thoughts And Beliefs Planted By Dead Men.
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Father Was Made For Romance. For Him There Was No Such Thing As A Fact.
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Draw Things That Have Some Meaning To You. An Apple, What Does It Mean? The Object Drawn Doesn't Matter So Much. It's What You Feel About It, What It Means To You. A Masterpiece Could Be Made Of A Dish Of Turnips.
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Her Thoughts Ran Away To Her Girlhood With Its Passionate Longing For Adventure And She Remembered The Arms Of Men That Had Held Her When Adventure Was A Possible Thing For Her. Particularly She Remembered One Who Had For A Time Been Her Lover And Who In The Moment Of His Passion Had Cried Out To Her More Than A Hundred Times, Saying The Same Words Madly Over And Over: "you Dear! You Dear! You Lovely Dear!" The Words, She Thought, Expressed Something She Would Have Liked To Have Achieved In Life.
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There Is A Kind Of Shrewdness Many Men Have That Enables Them To Get Money. It Is The Shrewdness Of The Fox After The Chicken. A Low Order Of Mentality Often Goes With It.
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I Am A Lover And Have Not Found My Thing To Love. That Is A Big Point If You Know Enough To Realize What I Mean. It Makes My Destruction Inevitable, You See. There Are Few Who Understand That.
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The Life Of Reality Is Confused, Disorderly, Almost Always Without Apparent Purpose, Whereas In The Artist's Imaginative Life There Is Purpose. There Is Determination To Give The Tale, The Song, The Painting, Form -- To Make It True And Real To The Theme, Not To Life.
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Those Who Are To Follow The Arts Should Have A Training In What Is Called Poverty. Given A Comfortable Middle-class Start In Life, The Artist Is Almost Sure To End Up By Becoming A Bellyacher, Constantly Complaining Because The Public Does Not Rush Forward At Once To Proclaim Him.
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The Fools Who Write Articles About Me Think That One Morning I Suddenly Decided To Write And Began To Produce Masterpieces. There Is No Special Trick About Writing, Or Painting Either. I Wrote Constantly For 15 Years Before I Produced Anything With Any Solidity To It.
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The Writer, An Old Man With A White Moustache, Had Some Difficulty Getting Into Bed.
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Realism, In So Far As The Word Means Reality To Life, Is Always Bad Art.
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There Is A Time In The Life Of Every Boy When He For The First Time Takes The Backward View Of Life. Perhaps That Is The Moment When He Crosses The Line Into Manhood.
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If I Can Write Everything Out Plainly, Perhaps I Will Myself Understand Better What Has Happened.
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The Eighteen Years He Has Lived Seem But A Moment, A Breathing Space In The Long March Of Humanity. Already He Hears Death Calling. With All His Heart He Wants To Come Close To Some Other Human, Touch Someone With His Hands, Be Touched By The Hand Of Another.
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What's Wrong With This Egotism? If A Man Doesn't Delight In Himself And The Force In Him And Feel That He And It Are Wonders, How Is All Life To Become Important To Him?
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He Thought About Himself And To The Young That Always Brings Sadness.
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...she Thought That Something Unexpressed In Herself Came Forth And Became A Part Of An Unexpressed Something In Them.
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In That High Place In The Darkness The Two Oddly Sensitive Human Atoms Held Each Other Tightly And Waited. In The Mind Of Each Was The Same Thought. "i Have Come To This Lonely Place And Here Is This Other," Was The Substance Of The Thing Felt.
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You Can Make It All Right If You Will Only Be Satisfied To Remain Small," I Told Myself. I Had To Keep Saying It Over And Over To Myself. "be Little. Don't Try To Be Big. Work Under The Guns. Be A Little Worm In The Fair Apple Of Life.
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I Am Pregnant With Song. My Body Aches But Do Not Betray Me. I Will Sing Songs And Hide Them Away. I Will Tear Them Into Bits And Throw Them In The Street. The Streets Of My City Are Full Of Dark Holes. I Will Hide My Songs In The Holes Of The Streets.
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Dark
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In The Beginning When The World Was Young There Were A Great Many Thoughts But No Such Thing As Truth. Man Made The Truths Himself And Each Truth Was A Composite Of A Great Many Vague Thoughts. All About In The World Were Truths And They Were All Beautiful.
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In Middle America Men Are Awakening. Like Awkward And Untrained Boys We Begin To Turn Toward Maturity And With Our Awakening We Hunger For Song. But In Our Towns And Fields There Are Few Memory Haunted Places. Here We Stand In Roaring City Streets, On Steaming Coal Heaps, In The Shadow Of Factories From Which Come Only The Grinding Roar Of Machines. We Do Not Sing But Mutter In The Darkness. Our Lips Are Cracked With Dust And With The Heat Of Furnaces. We But Mutter And Feel Our Way Toward The Promise Of Song.
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I Know About Her, Although She Has Never Crossed My Path," He Said Softly. "i Know About Her Struggles And Her Defeats. It Is Because Of Her Defeats That She Is To Me The Lovely One. Out Of Her Defeats She Has Been Born A New Quality In Woman. I Have A Name For It. I Call It Tandy. I Made Up The Name When I Was A True Dreamer And Before My Body Became Vile. It Is The Quality Of Being Strong To Be Loved. It Is Something Men Need From Women And That They Do Not Get.
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The Father Spent His Time Talking And Thinking Of Religion. He Proclaimed Himself An Agnostic And Was So Absorbed In Destroying The Ideas Of God That Had Crept Into The Minds Of His Neighbors That He Never Saw God Manifesting Himself In The Little Child That, Half Forgotten, Lived Here And There On The Bounty Of Her Dead Mother's Relatives.
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All Good New Orleanians Go To Look At The Mississippi At Least Once A Day. At Night It Is Like Creeping Into A Dark Bedroom To Look At A Sleeping Child--something Of That Sort--gives You The Same Warm Nice Feeling, I Mean.
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Absurdity
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You Must Try To Forget All You Have Learned,” Said The Old Man. “you Must Begin To Dream. From This Time On You Must Shut Your Ears To The Roaring Of The Voices.
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Men
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Thinking
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The Moment One Of The People Took One Of The Truths To Himself, Called It Histruth, And Tried To Live His Life By It, He Became A Grotesque And The Truth He Embraced A Falsehood.
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I Think You Know That When An American Stays Away From New York Too Long Something Happens To Him. Perhaps He Becomes A Little Provincial, A Little Dead And Afraid.
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Thinking
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Breasts
Whereas God, For Reasons Of His Own, Sometimes Chooses To Let The Machine Answer. 'the Supreme Being Is Unavailable To Come To The Phone At This Time, But He Wants You To Know What Your Call Is Important To Him. In The Meantime, For Sins Of Pride, Press One. For Avarice, Press Two.
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Two
Everyone Knows Of The Talking Artists. Throughout All Of The Known History Of The World They Have Gathered In Rooms And Talked. They Talk Of Art And Are Passionately,almost Feverishly, In Earnest About It. They Think It Matters Much More Than It Does.
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Thinking
Talking
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Masters
Love Is Like A Wind Stirring The Grass Beneath Trees On A Black Night,' He Had Said. 'you Must Not Try To Make Love Definite. It Is The Divine Accident Of Life. If You Try To Be Definite And Sure About It And To Live Beneath The Trees, Where Soft Night Winds Blow, The Long Hot Day Of Disappointment Comes Swiftly And The Gritty Dust From Passing Wagons Gathers Upon Lips Inflamed And Made Tender By Kisses.
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Kissing
Night
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Above All Avoid Taking The Advice Of Men Who Have No Brains And Do Not Know What They Are Talking About.
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Talking
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There Is A Note That Comes Into The Human Voice By Which You May Know Real Weariness. It Comes When One Has Been Trying With All His Heart And Soul To Think His Way Along Some Difficult Road Of Thought. Of A Sudden He Finds Himself Unable To Go On. Something Within Him Stops. A Tiny Explosion Takes Place. He Bursts Into Words And Talks, Perhaps Foolishly. Little Side Currents Of His Nature He Didn't Know Were There Run Out And Get Themselves Expressed. It Is At Such Times That A Man Boasts, Uses Big Words, Makes A Fool Of Himself In General.
Running
Real
Heart
On The Trees Are Only A Few Gnarled Apples That The Pickers Have Rejected. They Look Like The Knuckles Of Doctor Reefy's Hands. One Nibbles At Them And They Are Delicious. Into A Little Round Place At The Side Of The Apple Has Been Gathered All Its Sweetness. One Runs From Tree To Tree Over The Frosted Ground Picking The Gnarled, Twisted Apples And Filling His Pockets With Them. Only The Few Know The Sweetness Of The Twisted Apples.
Running
Doctors
Hands
Work Accomplished Means Little. It Is In The Past. What We All Want Is The Glorious And Living Present.
Mean
Past
Want
Work Accomplished Means Little. It Is In The Past. What We All Want Is The Glorious And Living Present.
Mean
Past
Want
Wait And Wait. Most People's Lives Are Spent Waiting.
People
Waiting
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Use
Done
If I Can Write Everything Out Plainly, Perhaps I Will Myself Understand Better What Has Happened.
Writing
Happened
Ifs
It Is Apparent That Nations Cannot Exist For Us. They Are The Playthings Of Children, Such Toys As Children Break From Boredom And Weariness. The Branch Of A Tree Is My Country. My Freedom Sleeps In A Mulberry Bush. My Country Is In The Shivering Legs Of A Little Lost Dog.
Country
Dog
Children
Dare To Be Strong And Courageous. That Is The Road. Venture Anything. Be Brave Enough To Dare To Be Loved. Be Something More Than Man Or Woman. Be Tandy.
Strong
Men
Brave
When A Man Publishes A Book, There Are So Many Stupid Things Said That He Declares He'll Never Do It Again. The Praise Is Almost Always Worse Than The Criticism.
Stupid
Book
Writing
From The Place By The Railing At The Edge Of The Tracks On The Summer Evening I Return Across The City To My Own Room. I Am Vividly Aware Of My Own Life That Escaped The Winter On The Boat. How Many Such Lives I Have Lived. Then I Only Made A Dollar And A Half A Day And Now I Sometimes Make More Than That In A Few Minutes. How Wonderful To Be Able To Write Words. ... Again I Begin The Endless Game Of Reconstructing My Own Life, Jerking It Out Of The Shell That Dies, Striving To Breathe Into It Beauty And Meaning. ... I Wonder Why My Life, Why All Lives, Are Not More Beautiful.
Beautiful
Summer
Writing
The Machines Men Are So Intent On Making Have Carried Them Very Far From The Old Sweet Things.
Sweet
Men
Machines
Dare To Be Strong And Courageous. That Is The Road. Venture Anything.
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Venture
Courageous
I Am A Lover And Have Not Found My Thing To Love.
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Lovers
Found
You Won’t Arrive. It Is An Endless Search.
Endless
What Is To Be Got At To Make The Air Sweet, The Ground Good Under The Feet, Can Only Be Got At By Failure, Trial, Again And Again And Again Failure.
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Air
Feet
In Middle America Men Are Awakening. Like Awkward And Untrained Boys We Begin To Turn Toward Maturity And With Our Awakening We Hunger For Song. But In Our Towns And Fields There Are Few Memory Haunted Places. Here We Stand In Roaring City Streets, On Steaming Coal Heaps, In The Shadow Of Factories From Which Come Only The Grinding Roar Of Machines. We Do Not Sing But Mutter In The Darkness. Our Lips Are Cracked With Dust And With The Heat Of Furnaces. We But Mutter And Feel Our Way Toward The Promise Of Song.
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Memories
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My Father, A Ruined Dandy From The South, Had Been Reduced To Keeping A Small Harness-repair Shop And, When That Failed, He Became Ostensibly A House-and-barn Painter. However, He Did Not Call Himself A House-painter. The Idea Was Not Flashy Enough For Him. He Called Himself A "sign-writer.
Father
Ideas
House
Learn To Draw. Try To Make Your Hand So Unconsciously Adept That It Will Put Down What You Feel Without Your Having To Think Of Your Hands. Then You Can Think Of The Thing Before You.
Thinking
Hands
Drawing
He Thought About Himself And To The Young That Always Brings Sadness.
Sadness
Young
I Wanted To Run Away From Everything But I Wanted To Run Towards Something Too.
Running
Running Away
Wanted
People Who Have Few Possessions Cling Tightly To Those They Have. That Is One Of The Facts That Make Life So Discouraging.
People
Facts
Discouraging
The Eighteen Years He Has Lived Seem But A Moment, A Breathing Space In The Long March Of Humanity. Already He Hears Death Calling. With All His Heart He Wants To Come Close To Some Other Human, Touch Someone With His Hands, Be Touched By The Hand Of Another.
Heart
Breathing Space
Hands
There Is A Note That Comes Into The Human Voice By Which You May Know Real Weariness. It Comes When One Has Been Trying With All His Heart And Soul To Think His Way Along Some Difficult Road Of Thought. Of A Sudden He Finds Himself Unable To Go On. Something Within Him Stops. A Tiny Explosion Takes Place. He Bursts Into Words And Talks, Perhaps Foolishly. Little Side Currents Of His Nature He Didn't Know Were There Run Out And Get Themselves Expressed. It Is At Such Times That A Man Boasts, Uses Big Words, Makes A Fool Of Himself In General.
Running
Real
Heart
On The Trees Are Only A Few Gnarled Apples That The Pickers Have Rejected. They Look Like The Knuckles Of Doctor Reefy's Hands. One Nibbles At Them And They Are Delicious. Into A Little Round Place At The Side Of The Apple Has Been Gathered All Its Sweetness. One Runs From Tree To Tree Over The Frosted Ground Picking The Gnarled, Twisted Apples And Filling His Pockets With Them. Only The Few Know The Sweetness Of The Twisted Apples.
Running
Doctors
Hands
The Fools Who Write Articles About Me Think That One Morning I Suddenly Decided To Write And Began To Produce Masterpieces. There Is No Special Trick About Writing, Or Painting Either. I Wrote Constantly For 15 Years Before I Produced Anything With Any Solidity To It.
Morning
Writing
Thinking
Nothing Gives Quite The Satisfaction That Doing Things Brings.
Giving
Satisfaction
It Is All Right You're Saying You Do Not Need Other People, But There Are A Lot Of People Who Need You.
People
Needs
Need You
Sometimes I Think We Americans Are The Loneliest People In The World. To Be Sure, We Hunger For The Power Of Affection, The Self-acceptance That Gives Life. It Is The Oldest And Strongest Hunger In The World. But Hungering Is Not Enough.
Acceptance
Thinking
Self
I Had A World, And It Slipped Away From Me. The War Blew Up More Than The Bodies Of Men....it Blew Ideas Away.
War
Men
Ideas
You Won’t Arrive. It Is An Endless Search.
Endless
Draw, Draw, Hundreds Of Drawings. Try To Remain Humble. Smartness Kills Everything.
Humble
Drawing
Trying
Dare To Be Strong And Courageous. That Is The Road. Venture Anything. Be Brave Enough To Dare To Be Loved. Be Something More Than Man Or Woman. Be Tandy.
Strong
Men
Brave
The Writer, An Old Man With A White Moustache, Had Some Difficulty Getting Into Bed.
Book
Men
White
If People Did Not Want Their Stories Told, It Would Be Better For Them To Keep Away From Me.
People
Would Be
Stories
The Fruition Of The Year Had Come And The Night Should Have Been Fine With A Moon In The Sky And The Crisp Sharp Promise Of Frost In The Air, But It Wasn't That Way. It Rained And Little Puddles Of Water Shone Under The Street Lamps On Main Street. In The Woods In The Darkness Beyond The Fair Ground Water Dripped From The Black Trees.
Moon
Night
Air
I Think The Whole Glory Of Writing Lies In The Fact That It Forces Us Out Of Ourselves And Into The Lives Of Others.
Lying
Writing
Thinking
What's Wrong With This Egotism? If A Man Doesn't Delight In Himself And The Force In Him And Feel That He And It Are Wonders, How Is All Life To Become Important To Him?
Men
Ego
Important
Don't Be Carried Off Your Feet By Anything Because It Is Modern - The Latest Thing. Go To The Louvre Often And Spend A Good Deal Of Time Before The Rembrandts, The Delacroixs.
Feet
Modern
Masters
In The Beginning When The World Was Young There Were A Great Many Thoughts But No Such Thing As Truth. Man Made The Truths Himself And Each Truth Was A Composite Of A Great Many Vague Thoughts. All About In The World Were Truths And They Were All Beautiful.
Men
People
World
It Was A Cold Day But The Sun Was Out And The Trees Were Like Great Bonfires Against Gray Distant Fields And Hills.
Tree
Fields
Sun
I Have Seldom Written A Story, Long Or Short, That I Did Not Have To Write And Rewrite. There Are Single Stories Of Mine That Have Taken Me Ten Or Twelve Years To Get Written.
Taken
Writing
Years
Love Is Like A Wind Stirring The Grass Beneath Trees On A Black Night,' He Had Said. 'you Must Not Try To Make Love Definite. It Is The Divine Accident Of Life. If You Try To Be Definite And Sure About It And To Live Beneath The Trees, Where Soft Night Winds Blow, The Long Hot Day Of Disappointment Comes Swiftly And The Gritty Dust From Passing Wagons Gathers Upon Lips Inflamed And Made Tender By Kisses.
Disappointment
Kissing
Night
You Must Try To Forget All You Have Learned,” Said The Old Man. “you Must Begin To Dream. From This Time On You Must Shut Your Ears To The Roaring Of The Voices.
Dream
Men
Voice
The Thing Of Course, Is To Make Yourself Alive. Most People Remain All Of Their Lives In A Stupor.
People
Alive
Courses
There Is Within Every Human Being A Deep Well Of Thinking Over Which A Heavy Iron Lid Is Kept Clamped.
Thinking
Iron
Heavy
The Life Of Reality Is Confused, Disorderly, Almost Always Without Apparent Purpose, Whereas In The Artist's Imaginative Life There Is Purpose. There Is Determination To Give The Tale, The Song, The Painting, Form -- To Make It True And Real To The Theme, Not To Life.
Song
Art
Determination
All Good New Orleanians Go To Look At The Mississippi At Least Once A Day. At Night It Is Like Creeping Into A Dark Bedroom To Look At A Sleeping Child--something Of That Sort--gives You The Same Warm Nice Feeling, I Mean.
Children
Nice
Mean
There Is A Kind Of Shrewdness Many Men Have That Enables Them To Get Money. It Is The Shrewdness Of The Fox After The Chicken. A Low Order Of Mentality Often Goes With It.
Money
Men
Order
When A Job Is To Be Done There's No Use Putting It Off.
Jobs
Use
Done
Those Who Are To Follow The Arts Should Have A Training In What Is Called Poverty. Given A Comfortable Middle-class Start In Life, The Artist Is Almost Sure To End Up By Becoming A Bellyacher, Constantly Complaining Because The Public Does Not Rush Forward At Once To Proclaim Him.
Art
Should Have
Class
Dare To Be Strong And Courageous. That Is The Road. Venture Anything.
Strong
Venture
Courageous
It May Be Life Is Only Worthwhile At Moments. Perhaps That Is All We Ought To Expect.
Life
May
Moments
People Who Have Few Possessions Cling Tightly To Those They Have. That Is One Of The Facts That Make Life So Discouraging.
People
Facts
Discouraging
Whereas God, For Reasons Of His Own, Sometimes Chooses To Let The Machine Answer. 'the Supreme Being Is Unavailable To Come To The Phone At This Time, But He Wants You To Know What Your Call Is Important To Him. In The Meantime, For Sins Of Pride, Press One. For Avarice, Press Two.
Pride
Phones
Two
What Is To Be Got At To Make The Air Sweet, The Ground Good Under The Feet, Can Only Be Got At By Failure, Trial, Again And Again And Again Failure.
Sweet
Air
Feet
...she Thought That Something Unexpressed In Herself Came Forth And Became A Part Of An Unexpressed Something In Them.
The Fruition Of The Year Had Come And The Night Should Have Been Fine With A Moon In The Sky And The Crisp Sharp Promise Of Frost In The Air, But It Wasn't That Way. It Rained And Little Puddles Of Water Shone Under The Street Lamps On Main Street. In The Woods In The Darkness Beyond The Fair Ground Water Dripped From The Black Trees.
Moon
Night
Air
The Disease We All Have And That We Have To Fight Against All Our Lives Is ... The Disease Of Self.
Fighting
Self
Disease
Everyone Knows Of The Talking Artists. Throughout All Of The Known History Of The World They Have Gathered In Rooms And Talked. They Talk Of Art And Are Passionately,almost Feverishly, In Earnest About It. They Think It Matters Much More Than It Does.
Art
Thinking
Talking
It Is No Use. I Find It Impossible To Work With Security Staring Me In The Face.
Use
Faces
Impossible
From The Place By The Railing At The Edge Of The Tracks On The Summer Evening I Return Across The City To My Own Room. I Am Vividly Aware Of My Own Life That Escaped The Winter On The Boat. How Many Such Lives I Have Lived. Then I Only Made A Dollar And A Half A Day And Now I Sometimes Make More Than That In A Few Minutes. How Wonderful To Be Able To Write Words. ... Again I Begin The Endless Game Of Reconstructing My Own Life, Jerking It Out Of The Shell That Dies, Striving To Breathe Into It Beauty And Meaning. ... I Wonder Why My Life, Why All Lives, Are Not More Beautiful.
Beautiful
Summer
Writing
Only The Few Know The Sweetness Of The Twisted Apples.
Apples
Twisted
Sweetness
I Know About Her, Although She Has Never Crossed My Path," He Said Softly. "i Know About Her Struggles And Her Defeats. It Is Because Of Her Defeats That She Is To Me The Lovely One. Out Of Her Defeats She Has Been Born A New Quality In Woman. I Have A Name For It. I Call It Tandy. I Made Up The Name When I Was A True Dreamer And Before My Body Became Vile. It Is The Quality Of Being Strong To Be Loved. It Is Something Men Need From Women And That They Do Not Get.
Strong
Struggle
Men
Father Was Made For Romance. For Him There Was No Such Thing As A Fact.
Father
Romance
Facts
Next To Occupation Is The Building Up Of Good Taste. That Is Difficult, Slow Work. Few Achieve It. It Means All The Difference In The World In The End.
Mean
Building Up
Differences
I Am A Little Thing, A Tiny Little Thing On The Vast Prairies. I Know Nothing. My Mouth Is Dirty. I Cannot Tell What I Want. My Feet Are Sunk In The Black Swampy Land, But I Am A Lover. I Love Life. In The End Love Shall Save Me.
Dirty
Love Life
Land
Interest In The Lives Of Others, The High Evaluation Of These Lives, What Are They But The Overflow Of The Interest A Man Finds In Himself, The Value He Attributes To His Own Being?.
Acceptance
Men
Evaluation
I Think That Those Of Us Who Are What Are Called Intellectuals Make A Terrible Mistake In Overvaluing The Yen We Have For The Arts, Books, Etc. There Is A Sweet, Fine Quality In Life That Has Nothing To Do With This, And More And More I Find Myself Valuing Myself With Those People.
Sweet
Art
Mistake
The Moment One Of The People Took One Of The Truths To Himself, Called It Histruth, And Tried To Live His Life By It, He Became A Grotesque And The Truth He Embraced A Falsehood.
People
Moments
Grotesque
Everyone In The World Is Christ And They Are All Crucified.
World
Christ
The Father Spent His Time Talking And Thinking Of Religion. He Proclaimed Himself An Agnostic And Was So Absorbed In Destroying The Ideas Of God That Had Crept Into The Minds Of His Neighbors That He Never Saw God Manifesting Himself In The Little Child That, Half Forgotten, Lived Here And There On The Bounty Of Her Dead Mother's Relatives.
Mother
Children
Father
Realism, In So Far As The Word Means Reality To Life, Is Always Bad Art.
Art
Mean
Reality
When A Man Publishes A Book, There Are So Many Stupid Things Said That He Declares He'll Never Do It Again. The Praise Is Almost Always Worse Than The Criticism.
Stupid
Book
Writing
Wait And Wait. Most People's Lives Are Spent Waiting.
People
Waiting
Draw, Draw, Hundreds Of Drawings. Try To Remain Humble. Smartness Kills Everything.
Humble
Drawing
Trying
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