Thomas Wolfe: Man

Thomas Wolfe was American writer. Explore interesting quotes on man.

Thomas Wolfe: 102 quotes33 likes

“Of all I have ever seen or learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man's life upon this earth — and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound.”

“Man is born to live, to suffer, and to die, and what befalls him is a tragic lot. There is no denying this in the final end. But we must deny it all along the way.”

“… he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he had left, yet does not say 'The town is near,' but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel

“And Christ himself, who preached the life of love, was yet as lonely as any man that ever lived. Yet I could not say that he was mistaken because he preached the life of love and fellowship, and lived and died in loneliness; nor would I dare assert his way was wrong because a billion men have since professed his way and never followed it.”

The Anatomy of Loneliness (1941)

“And the eternal paradox of it is that if a man is to know the triumphant labor of creation, he must for long periods resign himself to loneliness, and suffer loneliness to rob him of the health, the confidence, the belief and joy which are essential to creative work.”

The Anatomy of Loneliness (1941)

“They belonged to that futile, desolate, and forsaken horde who felt that all will be well with their lives, that all the power they lack themselves will be supplied, and all the anguish, fury, and unrest, the confusion and the dark damnation of man's soul can magically be healed if only they eat bran for breakfast.”

Thomas Wolfe book Of Time and the River

Of Time and the River (1935)

“The old church, with its sharp steeple, rotted slowly, decently, prosperously, like a good man's wife.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel (1929), p. 267

“You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, … back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time -- back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Book VI, Ch. 44: The Way of No Return
You Can't Go Home Again (1940)

“So, then, to every man his chance—to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity—to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him — this, seeker, is the promise of America.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Book IV, Ch. 31: The Promise of America
You Can't Go Home Again (1940)

“It was like a dream of hell, when a man finds his own name staring at him from the Devil's ledger; like a dream of death, when he who comes as mourner finds himself in the coffin, or as witness to a hanging, the condemned upon the scaffold.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel (1929), p. 62