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Erskine Caldwell Quotes
1903–1987 United States
Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903 – April 11, 1987) was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933), won him critical acclaim.
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To me there is no such thing as creative writing. It's either good writing, whatever the subject, or it's not creative.
Conversations with Erskine Caldwell (1988)
I'm not interested in plots. I'm interested only in the characterization of people and what they do.
Conversations with Erskine Caldwell (1988)
"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."
God's Little Acre (1933)
I was not a writer to begin with; I was a listener.
Conversations with Erskine Caldwell (1988)
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.
Conversations with Erskine Caldwell (1988)
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.
Conversations with Erskine Caldwell (1988)
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.
Tobacco Road (1932)
"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."
Tobacco Road (1932)
Here is hard-core unemployment, widespread and chronic; here is a region of shacks and hovels for housing; here are cliffs and ravines without standing room for a cow or chickens. In this region of steep mountains, a person is exceptionally fortunate if he is able to hack out two or three ten-foot rows of land for potatoes or beans.
Around about America (1964)
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