“ You can't be a good writer in the States anymore because to be a good one you have to have a country where you can be poor and still eat, and still make your living standard secondary to your writing.… Nelson Algren
“ Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity. Nelson Algren
“ ...he said, with sort of a little derisive smile, "How can you walk down the street with all this stuff going on inside you?" I said, "I don't know how you can walk down the street with nothing going… Nelson Algren
“ Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. Nelson Algren
“ Actually, they fought to fill the emptiness of their lives as they filled their empty glasses. They fought—not because the liquor was in them, but because it did not fill them enough. Nelson Algren
“ Well, I may get drunk," the Widow admitted, "but I don't stagger. Sometimes I fall down. But I don't stagger. Nelson Algren
“ The devil lives in a double-shot", Roman explains himself obscurely. "I got a great worm inside. Gnaws and gnaws. Every day I drown him and every day he gnaws. Help me drown the worm, fellas. Nelson Algren
“ Along the pavement-colored hall doors stood half open on either side, all the way down; each one was numbered in bright bald tin, each one stood just so much ajar in the gas-lit corridor. Just enough… Nelson Algren
“ Without hesitation, Dove chose the nowhere road. For that was the only place, in his heart of hearts, that he really wanted to go. Nelson Algren
“ He was falling between glacial walls, he didn't know how anyone could fall so far away from everyone else in the world. So far to fall, so cold all the way, so steep and dark between those morphine-co… Nelson Algren
“ You ever been arrested before?" "No sir. This is my first time." "The first time this week, you mean." "Oh, I been arrested in Michigan. I thought you meant in Illinois. I never been arrested in Illin… Nelson Algren
“ That's how it's always been: I was always in the clear so long as I was truly guilty. But the minute my motives were honest someone would finger me. Nelson Algren
“ I don't know what kind of great I'm bound to be," Dove considered his prospects calmly, "all I know for certain is I'm born a world-shaker. Nelson Algren
“ But nothing was said about chicken farming anymore. Once, long after it was too late for farming, he might catch her crying and pet her a bit. 'What's the matter, little baby? You got a fever? You wan… Nelson Algren
“ The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man. Nelson Algren
“ I bet you think fellas are the ones to remember a girl -- don't you?"He shook his head hurriedly, that he'd always thought that."Fellas have all the fun 'n she just sees one right after another, so it… Nelson Algren
