A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing.
Thomas Wolfe

All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.
Thomas Wolfe

America - it is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.
Thomas Wolfe

Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs.
Thomas Wolfe

Death the last voyage, the longest, and the best.
Thomas Wolfe

If a man has talent and can't use it, he's failed. If he uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he uses the whole of it, he has succeeded, and won a satisfaction and triumph few men ever know.
Thomas Wolfe

In Sleep we lie all naked and alone, in Sleep we are united at the heart of night and darkness, and we are strange and beautiful asleep; for we are dying the darkness and we know no death.
Thomas Wolfe

Is this not the true romantic feeling; not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you.
Thomas Wolfe

Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.
Thomas Wolfe

Most of the time we think we're sick, it's all in the mind.
Thomas Wolfe


Not even the most powerful organs of the press, including Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times, can discover a new artist or certify his work and make it stick. They can only bring you the scores.
Thomas Wolfe

One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.
Thomas Wolfe

Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America - that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement.
Thomas Wolfe

Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good.
Thomas Wolfe

The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.
Thomas Wolfe

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.
Thomas Wolfe