Sister Carrie Quotes

When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes wo...

The entire metropolitan centre possessed a high and mighty air calculated to overawe and abash the common applicant and to make the gulf between poverty and success seem both wide and deep. (2.27)

[Carrie] was sad beyond measure, and yet uncertain, wishing, fancying. Finally, it seemed as if all her state was one of loneliness and forsakenness, and she could scarce refrain from trembling at...

Now, in regard to his pursuit of women, [Drouet] meant them no harm, because he did not conceive of the relation which he hoped to hold with them as being harmful. He loved to make advances to wome...

[Sven Hanson] was of a clean, saving disposition, and had already paid a number of monthly installments on two lots far out on the West Side. His ambition was some day to build a house on them. (2.4)

The plea was that of a gaunt-faced man of about thirty, who looked the picture of privation and wretchedness. Drouet was the first to see. He handed over a dime with an upwelling feeling of pity i...

[Money] was something that was power in itself. One of [Carrie's] order of mind would have been content to be cast away upon a desert island with a bundle of money, and only the long strain of star...

There was no love lost between [Hurstwood and his wife]. There was no great feeling of dissatisfaction. Her opinion on any subject was not startling. They did not talk enough together to come to th...