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Top 30 Nelson Algren Quotes (2025 Update)

Nelson Algren Quote: “When we get more houses than we can live in, more cars than we can ride in, more food than we can eat ourselves, the only way of getting richer is by cutting off those who don’t have enough.”

1. “When we get more houses than we can live in, more cars than we can ride in, more food than we can eat ourselves, the only way of getting richer is by cutting off those who don’t have enough.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “And money can’t buy everything. For example: poverty.”

2. “And money can’t buy everything. For example: poverty.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “There’s people in hell who want ice water.”

3. “There’s people in hell who want ice water.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.”

4. “Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.”

5. “Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Never sleep with someone whose troubles are worse than your own.”

6. “Never sleep with someone whose troubles are worse than your own.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “For the masses who do the city’s labor also keep the city’s heart.”

7. “For the masses who do the city’s labor also keep the city’s heart.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards...”

8. “Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards...”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “The great trains howling from track to track all night. The taut and telegraphic murmur of ten thousand city wires, drawn most cruelly against a city sky. The rush of city waters, beneath the city streets. The passionate passing of the night’s last El.”

9. “The great trains howling from track to track all night. The taut and telegraphic murmur of ten thousand city wires, drawn most cruelly against a city sky. The rush of city waters, beneath the city streets. The passionate passing of the night’s last El.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Yet once you’ve come to be part of this particular patch, you’ll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.”

10. “Yet once you’ve come to be part of this particular patch, you’ll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “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-coloured walls...”

11. “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-coloured walls...”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “The Impossible Generalized Man today is the critic who believes in loving those unworthy of love as well as those worthy -yet believes this only insofar as no personal risk is entailed. Meaning he loves no one, worthy or no. This is what makes him impossible.”

12. “The Impossible Generalized Man today is the critic who believes in loving those unworthy of love as well as those worthy -yet believes this only insofar as no personal risk is entailed. Meaning he loves no one, worthy or no. This is what makes him impossible.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “There is no way of being a creative writer in America without being a loser.”

13. “There is no way of being a creative writer in America without being a loser.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Jane Addams too knew that Chicago’s blood was hustler’s blood. Knowing that Chicago, like John the Baptist and Bathhouse John, like Billy Sunday and Big Bill, forever keeps two faces, one for winners and one for losers, one for hustlers and one for squares.”

14. “Jane Addams too knew that Chicago’s blood was hustler’s blood. Knowing that Chicago, like John the Baptist and Bathhouse John, like Billy Sunday and Big Bill, forever keeps two faces, one for winners and one for losers, one for hustlers and one for squares.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “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.”

15. “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

Nelson Algren Quote: “Any writer who knows what he’s doing isn’t doing very much.”

16. “Any writer who knows what he’s doing isn’t doing very much.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “You don’t write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”

17. “You don’t write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Watch for a wild boy of no particular clan, ready for anything, always armed. Prefers fighting to toil, drink to fighting, chasing women to booze or battle: may attempt all three concurrently.”

18. “Watch for a wild boy of no particular clan, ready for anything, always armed. Prefers fighting to toil, drink to fighting, chasing women to booze or battle: may attempt all three concurrently.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “As certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”

19. “As certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “The only way I could finish a book and get a plot was just to keep making it longer until something happens.”

20. “The only way I could finish a book and get a plot was just to keep making it longer until something happens.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Nor all your piety nor all your preaching, nor all your crusades nor all your threats can stop one girl from going on the turf, can stop one mugging, can keep one promising youth from becoming a drug addict, so long as the force that drives the owners of our civilization is away from those who own nothing at all.”

21. “Nor all your piety nor all your preaching, nor all your crusades nor all your threats can stop one girl from going on the turf, can stop one mugging, can keep one promising youth from becoming a drug addict, so long as the force that drives the owners of our civilization is away from those who own nothing at all.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “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.”

22. “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

Nelson Algren Quote: “A book, a true book, is the writer’s confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings.”

23. “A book, a true book, is the writer’s confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “I couldn’t buy the lice off a sick cat,” the cabbie answered from the very depths of self-deprecation.”

24. “I couldn’t buy the lice off a sick cat,” the cabbie answered from the very depths of self-deprecation.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “The Irish ‘n Polacks always get along- didn’t ya ever notice? Irish ‘n Polacks live on p’tatoes ‘n got it in for Hitler, that’s why they get along so good; all over the world. Never heard of no war between Poland ’n Ireland, did you? No sir, that’s cause we’re all Cath’lics.”

25. “The Irish ‘n Polacks always get along- didn’t ya ever notice? Irish ‘n Polacks live on p’tatoes ‘n got it in for Hitler, that’s why they get along so good; all over the world. Never heard of no war between Poland ’n Ireland, did you? No sir, that’s cause we’re all Cath’lics.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Well, I may get drunk,” the Widow admitted, “but I don’t stagger. Sometimes I fall down. But I don’t stagger.”

26. “Well, I may get drunk,” the Widow admitted, “but I don’t stagger. Sometimes I fall down. But I don’t stagger.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “Heroin got the drive awright-but there’s not a tingle to a ton-you got to get M to get the tingle-tingle.”

27. “Heroin got the drive awright-but there’s not a tingle to a ton-you got to get M to get the tingle-tingle.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “I don’t recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write.”

28. “I don’t recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent.”

29. “To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “It’s the place built out of Man’s ceaseless failure to overcome himself. Out of Man’s endless war against himself we build our successes as well as our failures. Making it the city of all cities most like Man himself – loneliest creation of all this very old poor earth.”

30. “It’s the place built out of Man’s ceaseless failure to overcome himself. Out of Man’s endless war against himself we build our successes as well as our failures. Making it the city of all cities most like Man himself – loneliest creation of all this very old poor earth.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “He’s just a pore lonesome wife-left fellar.”

31. “He’s just a pore lonesome wife-left fellar.”

— Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Quote: “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.”

32. “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

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