Wright Morris Quotes

• In the blur of the photograph, time leaves its gleaming, snail-like track.

  Wright Morris

  Track, Photograph, Blur

  Wright Morris (1989). “Time pieces: photographs, writing, and memory”

  335 Copy quote

• The past is useless. That explains why it is past.

  Wright Morris

  Past, History, Useless

  Wright Morris (1978). “Cause for Wonder”, p.53, U of Nebraska Press

  19 Copy quote

• The camera eye is the one in the middle of our forehead, combining how we see with what there is to be seen.

  Wright Morris

  Eye, Cameras, Middle

  Wright Morris (1989). “Time pieces: photographs, writing, and memory”

  14 Copy quote

• However much [photographs] may lie, they do so with the raw materials of truth.

  Wright Morris

  Lying, Raw Materials, May

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• The man who comes to writing late, but is in essence a writer, may sometimes gain as much as he has lost: his experience of life has given him a subject, he is spared the youthful writer's self-torment and soul-searching.

  Wright Morris

  Writing, Men, Self

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• When writing is good, everything is symbolic, but symbolic writing is seldom good.

  Wright Morris

  Writing, Symbolic

  Wright Morris (1968). “A Bill of Rites, a Bill of Wrongs, a Bill of Goods”, [New York] : New American Library

  11 Copy quote

• The photograph, after all, is just a photograph. Words will determine its meaning and status.

  Wright Morris

  Photograph, Determine

  Wright Morris (1989). “Time pieces: photographs, writing, and memory”

  9 Copy quote

• There's little to see, but things leave an impression. It's a matter of time and repetition. As something old wears thin or out, something new wears in. The handle on the pump, the crank on the churn, the dipper floating in the bucket, the latch on the screen, the door on the privy, the fender on the stove, the knees of the pants and the seat of the chair, the handle of the brush and the lid to the pot exist in time but outside taste; they wear in more than they wear out. It can't be helped. It's neither good nor bad. It's the nature of life.

  Wright Morris

  Doors, Buckets, Floating

  Wright Morris, James Alinder (1982). “Photographs & words”, Friends of Photography Bookstore

  9 Copy quote

• After many months of writing, it occured to me that it might be possible to photograph, in the flesh, what I was attempting to capture in words. I bought a Rolleiflex camera and began to take pictures of objects or structures that were used and abused by human hands

  Wright Morris

  Writing, Used And Abused, Hands

  9 Copy quote

• We're in the world of communications more and more, tough we're in communication less and less.

  Wright Morris

  Communication, World, Tough

  13 Copy quote

• We make to ourselves pictures of facts. The picture is a model of reality

  Wright Morris

  Reality, Facts, Models

  Wright Morris (1975). “About fiction: reverent reflections on the nature of fiction with irreverent observations on writers, readers & other abuses”, HarperCollins Publishers

  8 Copy quote

• The man who walks alone is soon trailed by the F.B.I.

  Wright Morris

  Men, He Man, Walks

  Wright Morris (1968). “A Bill of Rites, a Bill of Wrongs, a Bill of Goods”, [New York] : New American Library

  10 Copy quote

• Writes have an island, a center of refuge, within themselves. It is the mind's anchorage, the soul's Great Good Place.

  Wright Morris

  Writing, Islands, Soul

  11 Copy quote

• The vast number of photographers, feeding on anything visible, overgraze the landscape the way cattle overgraze their pasture.

  Wright Morris

  Numbers, Landscape, Way

  Wright Morris (1989). “Time pieces: photographs, writing, and memory”

  5 Copy quote

• As the style of Faulkner grew out of his rage--out of the impotence of his rage--the style of Hemingway grew out of the depth andnuance of his disenchantment.

  Wright Morris

  Style, Depth, Rage

  8 Copy quote

• [We] make images to see clearly: then we see clearly what we have made.

  Wright Morris

  Made

  7 Copy quote

• Writing has made me rich-not in money but in a couple hundred characters out there, whose pursuits and anguish and triumphs I've shared. I am unspeakably grateful at the life I have come to lead.

  Wright Morris

  Couple, Grateful, Writing

  5 Copy quote

• Cats don't belong to people. They belong to places.

  Wright Morris

  Cat, People

  Wright Morris (1989). “Collected stories, 1948-1986”, David R. Godine Publisher

  4 Copy quote

• I prefer a taken to a made photograph.

  Wright Morris

  Taken, Photograph, Made

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• Images proliferate. Am I wrong in being reminded of printing money in a period of wild inflation? Do we know what we are doing? Are we able to evaluate what we have done?

  Wright Morris

  Printing Money, Done, Able

  Wright Morris (1989). “Time pieces: photographs, writing, and memory”

  7 Copy quote

• The imagination made us human, but being human, becoming more human, is a greater burden than we imagined. We have no choice but to imagine ourselves more human than we are.

  Wright Morris

  Imagination, Choices, Becoming

  4 Copy quote

• Everyone in California is from somewhere else.

  Wright Morris

  Somewhere Else, California

  Wright Morris (1977). “Love Among the Cannibals”, p.9, U of Nebraska Press

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