“I was happier in the old days when I was always dreaming of the thing I…” — Stephen Crane | V2Melody

“I was happier in the old days when I was always dreaming of the thing I have now attained.”

Finding anticipation more satisfying than the arrival of success · Letter, written in England (published 1900)

About Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane

1 November 1871–5 June 1900

Stephen Crane, born 1 November 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, and dead of tuberculosis on 5 June 1900 in Badenweiler, Germany, lived only twenty-eight years, yet his work altered the direction of American fiction, journalism, and poetry. He is commonly placed among the major writers of literary naturalism, beside such…

More by Stephen Crane

Poems by Stephen Crane

More remarks by Stephen Crane

“Later I discovered that my creed was identical with the one of Howells and Garland and in this way I became involved in the beautiful war between those who say that art is man’s substitute for nature and we are most successful in art when we approach the nearest to nature and truth.”

Aligning himself with the realists against artificial cleverness · Letter to Lily Brandon, 29 February 1896

“I am clay—very common uninteresting clay. I am a good deal of a rascal, sometimes a bore, often dishonest.”

Offering a blunt, self-deprecating assessment of character · Letter to Daisy Hill, circa 1896

“When I was the mark for every humorist in the country I went ahead, and now, when I am the mark for only 50 per cent. of the humorists of the country, I go ahead.”

Persisting in the face of mockery and shifting public opinion · Letter, circa 1895–96 (to a friend, published 1900)