Nature, Machine-like, Works Definitely And Heartlessly, If

Dreiser Wanted To Write The Next Great American Novel, And His Desperation Pervades [ Sister Carrie ] Like An Unsavory Pit Stain.

When A Girl Leaves Her Home At Eighteen, She Does One Of Two Things. Either She Falls Into Saving Hands And Becomes Better, Or She Rapidly Assumes The Cosmopolitan Standard Of Virtue And Becomes Worse

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.

Our Civilization Is Still In A Middle Stage, Scarcely Beast, In That It Is No Longer Wholly Guided By Instinct; Scarcely Human, In That It Is Not Yet Wholly Guided By Reason.

The Mystery Of Life--its Inexplicability, Beauty, Cruelty, Tenderness, Folly . . . Has Occupied The Greater Part Of My Waking Thoughts; And In Reverence Or Rage Or Irony, As The Moment Or Situation Might Dictate, I Have Pondered And Even Demanded Of Cosmic Energy To Know Why.