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
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