Quotes from An American Tragedy

Theodore Dreiser ·  859 pages

Rating: (28.1K votes)


“what matter it if a man gaineth the whole world and loseth his own soul?”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“She turned; she bruised under her heel the scaly head of this dark suspicion-as terrifying to her as his guilt was to him. 'O Absalom, my Absalom! Come, come, we will not entertain such a thought. God himself would not urge it upon a mother.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“She merely beamed a fatty beam. She was almost ponderous, and pink, with a tendency to a double chin.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“As they sang, this nondescript and indifferent street audience gazed, held by the peculiarity of such an unimportant-looking family publicly raising its collective voice against the vast skepticism and apathy of life.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“I was in Chicago before I came here, but I didn’t do so very much dancing. I had to work.” He was thinking how such girls as she had everything, as contrasted with girls like Roberta, who had nothing. And yet, as he now felt in this instance, he liked Roberta better. She was sweeter and warmer and kinder—not so cold.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy



“Нет греха слишком большого для милосердия Божьего.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“And they were always testifying as to how God or Christ or Divine Grace had rescued them from this or that predicament—never how they had rescued any one else. And”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“Who were these people with money, and what had they done that they should enjoy so much luxury, where others as good seemingly as themselves had nothing? And wherein did these latter differ so greatly from the successful?”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“...the past was so painful at any point. It seared and burned.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy


“course. For in some blind, dualistic way both she and Asa insisted, as do all religionists, in disassociating God from harm and error and misery, while granting Him nevertheless supreme control. They would seek for something else—some malign, treacherous, deceiving power which, in the face of God’s omniscience and omnipotence, still beguiles and betrays—and find it eventually in the error and perverseness of the human heart, which God has made, yet which He does not control, because He does not want to control it.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy



About the author

Theodore Dreiser
Born place: in Terre Haute, Indiana, The United States
Born date August 27, 1871
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Aurit argued that for the person with more power in a relationship to refuse to take seriously the unhappiness of the other, simply because nothing is forcing them to, is the ultimate dick move: “It’s like if the United States in the 1950s said, ‘Sorry, black people in the South, but if you don’t like the way you’re being treated, you can go back to Africa.”
― Adelle Waldman, quote from The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.


“Do you really like him?” She puts her hands on her hips.

“I really, really like him.”

“Wow, that’s a lot. Okay, I’ll help, but only because Logan still really, really likes you, too.”
― Leah Rae Miller, quote from The Summer I Became a Nerd


“She had not liked the German at first, but she decided that that was just because he had shot her to death.”
― Larry Correia, quote from Hard Magic


“I am scared of the way they are clinging to the French and Belgian ports, even though they’ve been pushed out of most of the rest of France. There is something about it that spooks me. They’ve lost.”
― Elizabeth Wein, quote from Rose Under Fire


“During World War II, the British spy agency MI8 secretly recruited a crew of teenage wireless operators (prohibited from discussing their activities even with their families) to intercept coded messages from the Nazis. By forwarding these transmissions to the crack team of code breakers at Bletchley Park led by the computer pioneer Alan Turing, these young hams enabled the Allies to accurately predict the movements of the German and Italian forces. Asperger’s prediction that the little professors in his clinic could one day aid in the war effort had been prescient, but it was the Allies who reaped the benefits.”
― Steve Silberman, quote from NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity


Interesting books

The Submissive
(16.6K)
The Submissive
by Tara Sue Me
Attack of the Fiend
(18.1K)
Attack of the Fiend
by Joseph Delaney
Nineteen Eighty-Four
(2.3M)
Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell
Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
(6.9K)
Morning and Evening,...
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Jack & Jill
(58.6K)
Jack & Jill
by James Patterson
Eleventh Grade Burns
(15.8K)
Eleventh Grade Burns
by Heather Brewer

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.