Margaret Anderson Quotations

In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person.

I defied nothing at all. I ignored the law because I didn't know it existed. It didn't occur to me that anyone would want to curb my inspiration.

Life for me has been exactly what I thought it would be, a cake, which I have eaten and had too.

I have always fought for ideas - until I learned that it isn't ideas but grief, struggle, and flashes of vision which enlighten.

My greatest enemy is reality. I have fought it successfully for thirty years.

I was as repelled by the French as I was attracted by their country.

It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane.

My unreality is chiefly this: I have never felt much like a human being. It's a splendid feeling.

I have always suspected that too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. It is a boon to people who don't have deep feelings; their pleasure comes from what they know. . . . But this only emphasizes the difference between the artist and the scholar.

I have always fought for ideas -- until I learned that it isn't ideas but grief, struggle, and flashes of vision which enlighten.

I was feeling a bit nervous until I came along today. But now I'm looking forward to the shows so much.

I wasn't born to be a fighter. The causes I have fought for have invariably been causes that should have been gained by a delicate suggestion. Since they never were, I made myself into a fighter.

We just felt like what we were doing would be appreciated by someone else. We've enjoyed it, but it's nice to pass it on and not just put it away in a drawer somewhere.

They've gone to the trouble to try to educate people that there is a cultural taboo there,

. . . the great thing to learn about life is, first, not to do what you don't want to do, and, second, to do what you do want to do.