Carl Sandburg Quotes

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

Look out how you use proud words.
When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.
They wear long boots, hard boots; they walk off proud; they can’t hear you calling -
Look out how you use proud words.

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

Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

Come clean with a child heart
Laugh as peaches in the summer wind
Let rain on a house roof be a song
Let the writing on your face
be a smell of apple orchards on late June.

It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?

Tell no man anything, for no man listens
Yet hold thy lips ready to speak.

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.

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.

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.

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself

There are some people so lonely, they think God is lonely too-

A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

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.

There is a music for lonely hearts nearly always.
If the music dies down there is a silence.
Almost the same as the movement of music.
To know silence perfectly is to know music.

Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it runs by.