Nelson Algren Quotes

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And never, ever, no matter what else you do in your whole life, never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own.

Nelson Algren

Sex, Women, Sleep

"Conversations with Nelson Algren".

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When we get more houses than we can live in, more cars than we can ride in, more food than we can eat ourselves, the only way of getting richer is by cutting off those who don't have enough.

Nelson Algren

Cutting, Car, House

Nelson Algren (2010). “A Walk On The Wild Side”, p.132, Canongate Books

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Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

Nelson Algren

Mom, Sleep, Men

A Walk on the Wild Side pt. 3 (1956)

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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

Writing, Blow, Creative

"Nonconformity: Writing on Writing". Book by Nelson Algren, 1996.

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And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty.

Nelson Algren

Example, Poverty

"A Walk on the Wild Side". Book by Nelson Algren (Chapter 3), 1956.

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Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.

Nelson Algren

Spring, Cities, Chicago

"Chicago: City on the Make" by Nelson Algren, University of Chicago Press, Ch. 7, 1987.

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Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.

Nelson Algren

Real, Broken, Lovely

Nelson Algren (1983). “Chicago, city on the make”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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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

Book, Character, Feelings

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Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.

Nelson Algren

Writing, Knows

Nelson Algren, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1942). “Never Come Morning”, p.295, Seven Stories Press

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...he said, with sort of a little derisive smile, "How can you walk down the street with all this stuff going on inside you?" I said, "I don't know how you can walk down the street with nothing going on inside you.

Nelson Algren

Littles, Stuff, Said

Nelson Algren, H. E. F. Donohue (1964). “Conversations with Nelson Algren”, Hill

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Thinking of Poe, thinking of Mark Twain and Vachel Lindsay, thinking of Jack London and Tom Wolfe, one begins to feel there is almost no way of becoming a creative writer in America without being a loser.

Nelson Algren

America, Creative, Way

"A Walk On The Wild Side".

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For the masses who do the city's labor also keep the city's heart.

Nelson Algren

Heart, Cities, Mass

Nelson Algren (1983). “Chicago, city on the make”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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I'm not against sentimentality. I think you need it. I mean, I don't think you get a true picture of people without it in writing... It's a kind of poetry, it's an emotional poetry, and, to bring it back to the literary scene, I don't think anything is true that doesn't have it, that doesn't have poetry in it.

Nelson Algren

Writing, Mean, Emotional

Nelson Algren (1999). “The Man with the Golden Arm”, p.415, Seven Stories Press

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Watch for a wild boy of no particular clan, ready for anything, always armed. Prefers fighting to toil, drink to fighting, chasing women to booze or battle: may attempt all three concurrently.

Nelson Algren

Fighting, Boys, Battle

Nelson Algren (2010). “A Walk On The Wild Side”, p.26, Canongate Books

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Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.

Nelson Algren

Challenges, Humanity, Literature

Nelson Algren (2011). “The Man with the Golden Arm: 50th Anniversary Critical Edition”, p.455, Seven Stories Press

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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

Self, Deception, Vision

Nelson Algren (1998). “Nonconformity: Writing on Writing”, p.85, Seven Stories Press

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The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D.

Nelson Algren

Work, Men, Assessing

"Nelson Algren, The Art of Fiction No. 11". Interview with Alston Anderson, Terry Southern, www.theparisreview.org. 1955.

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I don't recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write.

Nelson Algren

Writing, Want, Helping

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It is strange how fragile this man-creature is.....in one second he's just garbage. Garbage, that's all.

Nelson Algren

Men, Garbage, Strange

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... Chicago divided your heart. Leaving you loving the joint for keeps. Yet knowing it never can love you.

Nelson Algren

Love You, Heart, Knowing

Nelson Algren (1961). “Chicago: The City on the Make”

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To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent.

Nelson Algren

Book, Writing, Guilty

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The great trains howling from track to track all night. The taut and telegraphic murmur of ten thousand city wires, drawn most cruelly against a city sky. The rush of city waters, beneath the city streets. The passionate passing of the night's last El.

Nelson Algren

Night, Sky, Cities

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The only way I could finish a book and get a plot was just to keep making it longer until something happens.

Nelson Algren

Book, Plot, Way

Nelson Algren (2011). “Entrapment and Other Writings”, p.90, Seven Stories Press

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Never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.

Nelson Algren

Lying, Dating, Advice

"Alastair Cook gives England total control against shambolic India" by Mike Selvey, www.theguardian.com. August 11, 2011.

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The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

Nelson Algren

Writing, Responsibility, Men

1961 Preface to reprint of Chicago: City On The Make (first published 1951).

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Born: March 28, 1909
Died: May 9, 1981
Occupation: Film writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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