Quotes from Erskine Caldwell

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.

Menulis cerita pendek dan novel bukanlah sesuatu hal yang dapat aku lakukan dengan mudah dan menyenangkan.

Good preachers don't preach about God and heaven, and things like that. They always preach against something, like hell and the devil. Them is things to be against. It wouldn't do a preacher no good to preach for God. He's got to preach against the devil and all wicked and sinful things. That's what the people like to hear about. They want to hear about the bad things.

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.

Kegiatan fisik dalam menulis fiksi bertolak belakang dengan hasil yang didapat. Kegiatan tersebut adalah duduk tegang dan jenuh sepanjang siang atau malam di depan meja dan mesin ketik, pada saat aku ingin berdiri dan pergi ke suatu tempat untuk melihat sesuatu yang aku yakini lebih menarik dibanding apa yang sedang aku kerjakan.

Menulis fiksi adalah menuangkan perasaan dan semangat hidup dalam untaian kata-kata di atas kertas-sebuah usaha tanpa akhir untuk mendapatkan makna-makna yang berbeda

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...

There were always well-developed plans in Jeeter's mind for the things he intended doing; but somehow he never got around to doing them. One day led to the next, and it was much more easy to say he would wait until tomorrow. When that day arrived, he invariably postponed action until a more convenient time. Things had been going along in that easy way for almost a lifetime now; nevertheless

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.

Co-operative and corporate farming would have saved them all.

She could sometimes stand the pain of it in her stomach when she knew there was nothing to eat, but when Lov stood in full view taking turnips out of the sack, she could not bear the sight of seeing food no one would let her have.

Menulis fiksi adalah usaha untuk menciptakan tokoh-tokoh rekaan dan kejadian-kejadian penuh makna dalam batas-batas sempit dunia kecil yang aku kenal.

He sometimes said it was partly his own fault, but he believed steadfastly that his position had been brought about by other people. He

The spring-time ain't going to let you fool it by hiding away inside a durn cotton mill. It knows you got to stay on the land to feel good. That's because humans made the mills. God made the land, but you don't see Him building durn cotton mills. That's how I know better than to go up there like the rest of them. I stay where God made a place for me.

Though it sometimes looks like a rich man will never help the poor; whereas the poor people will give away everything they has to help somebody who ain't got nothing. That's how it looks to me. Don't seem like it ought to be that way, but I reckon the rich ain't got no time to fool with us poor folks.

All you boys seem to think about is the things you can see and touch—that ain't living. It's the things you can feel inside of you—that's what living is made for.

He knew the time for burning and plowing had ended the day before, but there still lingered in the warm March air something of the new season. The smell of freshly turned earth and the odor of pine and sedge-smoke hovered over the land even after burning and plowing was done. He breathed deeply of it, filling his body with the invigorating aroma.

Women ain't good for nothing but to marry and work for men

Me and Tom used to get along first-rate concerning everything. Me and him never had no difficulties like I was always having with my other children. They used to throw rocks at me and hit me over the head with sticks, but Tom never did. Tom was always a first-rate boy when I knowed him.

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...