Erskine Caldwell

Quotes

• “Here is hard-core unemployment, widespread and chronic; here is a region of shacks and hovels for housing; here are cliffs and ravines without standing room for a cow or chickens. In this region of steep mountains, a person is exceptionally fortunate if he is able to hack out two or three ten-foot rows of land for potatoes or beans.”
• “She could sometimes stand the pain of it in her stomach when she knew there was nothing to eat, but when Lov stood in full view taking turnips out of the sack, she could not bear the sight of seeing food no one would let her have.”
• “"The spring-time ain’t going to let you fool it by hiding away inside a durn cotton mill. It knows you got to stay on the land to feel good. That’s because humans made the mills. God made the land, but you don’t see Him building durn cotton mills. That’s how I know better than to go up there like the rest of them. I stay where God made a place for me."”
• “There were always well-developed plans in Jeeter’s mind for the things he intended doing; but somehow he never got around to doing them. One day led to the next, and it was much more easy to say he would wait until tomorrow. When that day arrived, he invariably postponed action until a more convenient time. Things had been going along in that easy way for almost a lifetime now; nevertheless, he was again getting ready to burn off the fields and plow the land. He wanted to raise a crop of cotton.”
• “"Though it sometimes looks like a rich man will never help the poor; whereas the poor people will give away everything they has to help somebody who ain’t got nothing. That’s how it looks to me. Don’t seem like it ought to be that way, but I reckon the rich ain’t got no time to fool with us poor folks."”
• “He knew the time for burning and plowing had ended the day before, but there still lingered in the warm March air something of the new season. The smell of freshly turned earth and the odor of pine and sedge-smoke hovered over the land even after burning and plowing was done. He breathed deeply of it, filling his body with the invigorating aroma.”

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Key facts

Born

Erskine Preston Caldwell , December 17, 1903, Moreland, Georgia , U.S.

Died

April 11, 1987 (1987-04-11) (aged 83), Paradise Valley, Arizona , U.S.

Resting place

Scenic Hills Memorial Park, Ashland, Oregon

Occupation

Novelist, short story writer

Literary movement

Social realism , American literary regionalism

Notable works

Tobacco Road , God's Little Acre , All Out On The Road To Smolensk

Spouses

Helen Lannegan ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1925 , divorced ) ​ , Margaret Bourke-White ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1939 ; divorced</span>"}]]}'>div. 1942 ) ​

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Wikidata facts

Image

Erskine Caldwell 1975.jpg

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