Edna Ferber Quotes

Living in the past is a dull and lonely business looking back strains the neck muscles causes you to bump into people not going your way.

People in big empty places are likely to behave very much as the gods did on Olympus.

I am not belittling the brave pioneer men but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours.

A stricken tree, a living thing, so beautiful, so dignified, so admirable in its potential longevity, is, next to man, perhaps the most touching of wounded objects.

The leading lady had a large and saving sense of humor. But there is nothing that blunts the sense of humor more quickly than a few months of one-night stands. Even O. Henry could have seen nothing funny about that room.

Then there were long, lazy summer afternoons when there was nothing to do but read. And dream. And watch the town go by to supper. I think that is why our great men and women so often have sprung from small towns, or villages. They have had time to dream in their adolescence. No cars to catch, no matinees, no city streets, none of the teeming, empty, energy-consuming occupations of the city child. Little that is competitive, much that is unconsciously absorbed at the most impressionable period, long evenings for reading, long afternoons in the fields or woods.

A life like this develops the comedy sense. You can't play tragedy while you're living it.

About mistakes it's funny. You've got to make your own; and not only that, if you try to keep people from making theirs, they get mad.