Life & Wisdom Quote by Carl Sandburg

There is a quiet swagger in Sandburg’s pivot from firehouse to newsroom, and it’s the kind that only works because it refuses to brag. “Try my luck” sounds casual, almost shrugged off, but it smuggles in a whole philosophy: talent matters, sure, yet so does contingency, timing, the city you choose, the door that happens to open. Sandburg frames authorship not as destiny but as a wager placed by someone who’s learned what real risk feels like.

The eight months “as a fireman” do heavy lifting. It’s not a résumé detail; it’s a credential of proximity to heat, danger, and working-class camaraderie. He’s telling you his writing won’t be spun from campus air. The subtext is authority earned through labor, the idea that the poet’s voice can come from soot and shifts, not just salons. That background also functions as a moral alibi for ambition: he’s not chasing fame, he’s taking a shot at a more fitting kind of work after doing something honest and physical.

Then there’s Chicago, doing what Chicago always does in American mythology: promising modernity with sharp elbows. For Sandburg, the city isn’t a backdrop; it’s an engine of language. Choosing it signals a hunger for scale and collision - immigrants, industry, politics, hustle - the raw material that would later pulse through his portraits of the metropolis. This line captures a self-invention story that feels both democratic and unsentimental: you don’t get called to be a writer; you go somewhere loud and make it happen.