Quotes from Carl Sandburg

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.

Two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves. They flickered out saying: "It was worth being a bubble, just to have held that rainbow thirty seconds.

If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way.

Gather the stars if you wish it so Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then... Loosen your hands, let go and say good-bye. Let the stars and songs go. Let the faces and years go. Loosen your hands and say good-bye.

Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at television. They had 'Loneliness' and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.

Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.

To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what was seen during a moment.

Life is an onion - you peel it year by year and sometimes cry.

Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

Yesterday and tomorrow cross and mix on the skyline. The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets, one waits.

By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul.

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.

In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning

Let your heart look on white sea spray and be lonely. Love is a fool star. You and a ring of stars may mention my name and then forget me. Love is a fool star.

Love your neighbor as yourself, but don't take down the fence.

Time is a sandpile we run our fingers in.

1 tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.