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Robert Penn Warren Quotes - Page 4

All Quotes Giving Heart History Life Past Poetry Soul Writing
I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

Robert Penn Warren
Pain, Writing, Done
National Observer, March 12, 1977.

We are the prisoners of history. Or are we?

Robert Penn Warren
History, Prisoner

All I've tried to do (with my writing) is capture the essence of my time.

Robert Penn Warren
Writing, Essence, Capture

More and more Emerson recedes grandly into history, as the future he predicted becomes a past.

Robert Penn Warren
Past
Robert Penn Warren's Acceptance speech for the 1970 National Medal for Literature, New York City, New York, December 2, 1970.

If a man knew how to live he would never die.

Robert Penn Warren
Life, Men, Dies
Robert Penn Warren (2006). “All the King's Men”, p.531, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that.

Robert Penn Warren
History, Melodrama, Ifs
Robert Penn Warren (2015). “The Legacy of the Civil War”, p.33, U of Nebraska Press

Perhaps he had to be close in order to keep a reason for the things he did. To make the things he did be themselves Life. And not merely a delightful exercise of technical skill which man had been able to achieve because he, of all the animals, had a fine thumb. Which is nonsense, for whatever you live is Life.

Robert Penn Warren
Life, Animal, Men
"All the King's Men".

Dying--shucks! If you kin handle the living, what's to be afraid of the dying?

Robert Penn Warren
Dying, Handle, Ifs
Robert Penn Warren (1988). “A Robert Penn Warren reader”, Vintage

There ain't anything worth doing a man can do and keep his dignity. Can you figure out a single thing you really please-God like to do you can do and keep your dignity? The human frame just ain't built that way.

Robert Penn Warren
Men, Way, Dignity
Robert Penn Warren (2006). “All the King's Men”, p.58, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

My only crime was being a man and living in the world of men, and you don't have to do special penance for that. The crime and the penance, in that case, coincide perfectly. They are identical.

Robert Penn Warren
Men, Special, World
Robert Penn Warren (2006). “All the King's Men”, p.500, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

[A]nd soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time.

Robert Penn Warren
Responsibility, House, World

For life is a fire burning along a piece of string--or is it a fuse to a powder keg which we call God?--and the string is what we don't know, our Ignorance, and the trail of ash, which, if a gust of wind does not come, keeps the structure of the string, is History, man's Knowledge, but it is dead, and when the fire has burned up all the string, then man's Knowledge will be equal to God's Knowledge and there won't be any fire, which is Life. Or if the string leads to a powder keg, then there will be a terrific blast of fire, and even the trail of ash will be blown completely away.

Robert Penn Warren
Ignorance, Men, Fire
Robert Penn Warren (2006). “All the King's Men”, p.226, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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