A biography for Carl Sandburghasn’t been written yet.
“I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.”
“I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.”
“The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.”
“Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.”
“Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.”
“Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.”
“Often I look back and see that I had been many kinds of a fool-and that I had been happy in being this or that kind of fool.”
“Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.”
“I have become infected, now that I see how beautifully a book is coming out of all this.”
“There are 10 men in me and I do not know or understand one of them.”
“Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today.Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction.See whether wisdom is just a lot of language.”
“All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.”
“In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.”
“Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.”
“Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
“Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.”
“The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.”
“My room for books and study or for sitting and thinking about nothing in particular to see what would happen was at the end of a hall.”
“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.”
“Love your neighbor as yourself; but don't take down the fence.”