1887-1968, American Author
A woman can look both moral and exciting — if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle.
Edna Ferber – [Morality]


America — rather, the United States — seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, over-friendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The chuckle among the nations of the world.
Edna Ferber – [America]


I am not belittling the brave pioneer men but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours.
Edna Ferber – [New World]


Life cannot defeat a writer who is in love with writing; for life itself is a writer's love until death.
Edna Ferber – [Writers and Writing]


Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!
Edna Ferber – [Writers and Writing]


Roast Beef, medium, is not only a food. It is a philosophy. Seated at Life's Dining Table, with the menu of Morals before you, your eye wanders a bit over the entrTes, the hors d'oeuvres, and the things a la though you know that Roast Beef, medium, is safe and sane, and sure.
Edna Ferber – [Food and Eating]


Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded? Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt?
Edna Ferber – [Marriage]


Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight.
Edna Ferber – [Writers and Writing]