Erskine Caldwell Quotes

#1. At first I read mostly books by Southern authors - black and white - because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell.

Edward P. Jones

#2. To me there is no such thing as creative writing. It's either good writing, whatever the subject, or it's not creative.

Erskine Caldwell

#3. Knowing in her head that God knew of His plans for her and convincing her heart were two different things.

Lauraine Snelling

#4. You don't love Buck. If you did, you'd have four kids by now. Wouldn't you? Now wouldn't you? A woman like you ...

Erskine Caldwell

#5. When I am happy at work, I tend to be happy in life. And when my work is a struggle, it negatively taints my entire outlook and existence. Anyone can relate to being miserable at work, and each of us can stand to improve his or her relationship with work.

Julie Clow

#6. I think you must remember that a writer is a simple-minded person to begin with and go on that basis. He's not a great mind, he's not a great thinker, he's not a great philosopher, he's a story-teller.

Erskine Caldwell

#7. Well, basically I have a lot of friends because I've been in the business a long time and worked with a lot of people.

Randy Jackson

#8. Influence is a very tenuous matter. I try to avoid it in every respect. I don't want to be influenced by anybody.

Erskine Caldwell

#9. Many Southern writers must have learned the art of storytelling from listening to oral tales. I did. It gave me the knowledge that the simplest incident can make a story.

Erskine Caldwell

#10. You can't misinterpret the sound of a good spanking, and someone was receiving one next door.

Alice Clayton

#11. Preachers has got to preach against something. It wouldn't do them no good to preach for everything. They got to be against something every time.

Erskine Caldwell

#12. This is the blessed life - not anxious to see far down the road nor overly concerned about the next step, not eager to choose the path nor weighted down with the heavy responsibilities of the future, but quietly following the Shepherd, one step at a time.

Lettie B. Cowman

#13. I was not a writer to begin with; I was a listener.

Erskine Caldwell

#14. I'm not interested in plots. I'm interested only in the characterization of people and what they do.

Erskine Caldwell

#15. He still could not understand why he had nothing, and would never have anything, and there was no one who knew and who could tell him. It was the unsolved mystery of his life.

Erskine Caldwell

#16. In the report made on behalf of the C.G.T. we affirmed that the Peace Treaty should, in accordance with the spirit of workers' organizations, lay the first foundations of the United States of Europe.

Leon Jouhaux