Quotes from book
All the King's Men

Robert Penn Warren

All the King's Men is a novel by Robert Penn Warren first published in 1946. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. In 1947, Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men. It was adapted for a film in 1949 and 2006; the 1949 version won the Academy Award for Best Picture; the 2006 version was a massive failure. It is rated as the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library, and it was chosen as one of Time magazine's 100 best novels since 1923.

Robert Penn Warren photo

“The end of man is knowledge but there's one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it would save him.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

All the King's Men (1946)

Robert Penn Warren photo

“Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men

Robert Penn Warren photo

“If you could not accept the past and its burden, there was no future, for without one there cannot be the other, and […] if you could accept the past you might hope for the future, for only out of the past can you make the future.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men (1946)

Robert Penn Warren photo

“[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 book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men

Robert Penn Warren photo

“Politics is a matter of choices, and a man doesn't set up the choices himself. And there is always a price to make a choice. You know that. You've made a choice, and you know how much it cost you. There is always a price.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men

Robert Penn Warren photo

“There was nothing particularly wrong with them; they were just the ordinary garden variety of human garbage.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men

Robert Penn Warren photo

“Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

All the King's Men (1946)

Robert Penn Warren photo

“They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men

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