You see it is likely that, when my brother told the story, that night when we got home and my mother and sister sat listening, I did not think he got… - Sherwood Anderson

You see it is likely that, when my brother told the story, that night when we got home and my mother and sister sat listening, I did not think he got the point. He was too young and so was I. A thing so complete has its own beauty.

To be civilized, really, is to be aware of the others, their hopes, their gladnesses, their illusions about life

you have perhaps seen, blinking in a corner of his iron cage, a huge, grotesque kind of monkey, a creature with ugly, sagging, hairless skin below his eyes and a bright purple underbody. This monkey is a true monster. In the completeness of his ugliness he achieved a kind of perverted beauty. Children stopping before the cage are fascinated, men turn away with an air of disgust, and women linger for a moment, trying perhaps to remember which one of their male acquaintances the thing in some faint way resembles.

In the main street of Winesburg crowds filled the stores and sidewalks. Night came on, horses whinnied, the clerks in stores ran madly about, children became lost and cried lustily, an American town worked terribly at the task of amusing itself.