Poetic lifestyle
"I have spent most of my life in small-town Illinois. It has been good for me to live where I can see a long way in all directions, and where the sky goes on forever. I would not enjoy being hemmed in by mountains, shoved up against an ocean, or surrounded by a desert. The ordered simplicity... has certainly been a big influence in my poetry."
--Poet Dave Etter, artistic statement, "An Illinois Portfolio"
Literary review
"Where in the city one would see a friend or go to the theatre, in Sauk Centre [Minnesota], there is nothing to do save drink or play poker..."
--Sinclair Lewis, first U.S. Nobel Prize winner for literature, during a college break in his hometown, from "Sinclair Lewis, Rebel From Main Street" by Richard Lingeman
Artist's muse
"No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from. I cannot forget the people who love me. Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town. And people let me be just what I want to be."
--From "Small Town," written and performed by John Mellencamp, rock star, painter, Midwest native
Comical observation
"In one of my favorite cafes in northern Iowa, this placard, hand painted, adorns one wall: 'There's not much to see or do in a small town, but what you hear in here will make up for it.' An apt and revealing thesis about small-town life boiled down to one sentence."
--Jon Spayde from "Take the Next Exit, New Views of the Iowa Landscape"
Wordplay
"A new town was only the same town in a different place."
--Midwest native Susan Glaspell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, from "The Wisdom of the Midwest," compiled and edited by Criswell Freeman
Read all about it
"Writing for a small town newspaper can be a challenge. Community journalism is often a one- or two-man show and your biggest competition may be the local gossip."
--Journalist Linda Sherwood of Merritt, Michigan
Presidential accolades
"The proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene [Kansas]."
--President Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 22, 1945, first homecoming after victory in World War II
Snapshot
"One cannot drive through the small towns of Illinois without being struck immediately by a sense of loss. Towns are either becoming cities, and in the process losing their unique character, or dying out altogether."
--From "Stopping By, Portraits from Small Towns," by Raymond Bial
Professor's review
"Who would have thought the afterlife would look so much like Ohio? A small town place, thickly settled among deciduous trees..."
--From "Beyond Even This," by poet Maggie Anderson, Kent State University professor
Author-itative statement
"Human nature cannot be studied in cities except at a disadvantage--a village is the place. There you can know your man inside and out--in a city you but know his crust; and his crust is usually a lie."
--From "Notebook #20, Jan. 1882 - Feb. 1883," by Mark Twain, who spent years in Hannibal, Missouri
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