Theodore Dreiser

Born 27 August 1871 · Died 28 December 1945

From Terre Haute, Indiana, United States · Nationality: United States · Writes fiction and nonfiction

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser ( August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency.[2] Dreiser's best-known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925).

Quotes

“Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.”
"Life, Art and America", in The Seven Arts February 1917
“If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstance.”
p. 734
“The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions—none more so than the most capable.”
The Financier, Chapter XIII
“The Irish are a philosophic as well as a practical race. Their first and strongest impulse is to make the best of a bad situation—to put a better face on evil than it normally wears.”
The Financier, Chapter XXVI