Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.

Other interviewees included Lillian Nordica Emilia E. Alfred Kazin characterized Dreiser as "stronger than all the others of his time and at the same time more poignant; greater than the world he has described but as significant as the people in it" while Larzer Ziff (UC Berkeley) remarked that Dreiser "succeeded beyond any of his predecessors or successors in producing a great American business novel. ".

Dreiser's best known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925). Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27 1871 – December 28 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school.