Nelson Algren - Quotes

Quotes

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

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

"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."

"(Chicago is) the only major city in the country where you can easily buy your way out of a murder rap."

"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." From A Walk on the Wild Side (1956)

"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." From Chicago: City on the Make (1951)

"My feeling was although the Nazis had to be beaten, because of what they stood for, this didn't necessarily mean that we believed in exactly the opposite, that, if we won the war, then everything was going to be as it should be." From Conversations with Nelson Algren (1964)

"I am the penny whistle of American literature." (comment to Kurt Vonnegut about being cheated out of the profits of The Man With the Golden Arm film)

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