Sinclair Lewis Quotes - Page 3

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• Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Writing, Safe, Polite

  Letter declining Pulitzer Prize in fiction (1926)

  7 Copy quote

• He who has seen one cathedral ten times has seen something; he who has seen ten cathedrals once has seen but little; and he who has spent half an hour in each of a hundred cathedrals has seen nothing at all.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Travel, Journey, Half

  Sinclair Lewis (2002). “Arrowsmith: Elmer Gantry ; Dodsworth”

  7 Copy quote

• You," Said Dr. Yavitch, "are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want -- and what I want now is a drink.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Ideas, Want, Drs

  Sinclair Lewis (2015). “Babbitt”, p.81, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Country, Art, Writing

  'Babbitt' (1922) ch. 14

  7 Copy quote

• Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Education, Literature, Cold

  Nobel Prize address, Stockholm, 12 Dec. 1930

  21 Copy quote

• To a true-blue professor of literature in an American university, literature is not something that a plain human being, living today, painfully sits down to produce. No; it is something dead.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Blue, Literature, Today

  Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Sinclair Lewis (1931). “Why Sinclair Lewis got the Nobel prize”

  11 Copy quote

• There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn't a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Two, Sense Of Humor, Insult

  Sinclair Lewis (1995). “Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott”, p.335, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Good Lord, I don't know what 'rights' a man has! And I don't know the solution of boredom. If I did, I'd be the one philosopher that had the cure for living. But I do know that about ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Fun, Nice, Believe

  Sinclair Lewis (2015). “Babbitt”, p.62, Sheba Blake Publishing

  5 Copy quote

• Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Writing, Secret, Use

  16 Copy quote

• Indians, of course, have no "theology," and indeed no word for the system of credulity in which the white priests arrange for God, who must be entirely bewildered by it, a series of excuses for his failures.

  Sinclair Lewis

  White, Excuse, Priests

  "The God-Seeker". Book by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 41, 1949.

  5 Copy quote

• Being a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Men, Vocabulary, Principles

  Sinclair Lewis (2015). “Babbitt”, p.68, Sheba Blake Publishing

  53 Copy quote

• Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles, damn the men that run the shops, oh, damn their measured merriment.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Running, Men, He Man

  1925 Arrowsmith, ch.25.

  6 Copy quote

• If travel were so inspiring and informing a business ... then the wisest men in the world would be deck hands on tramp steamers.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Men, Wisest Man, Hands

  Sinclair Lewis (2002). “Arrowsmith: Elmer Gantry ; Dodsworth”

  4 Copy quote

• I have faith in Faith, I have reverence for all true Reverence.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Have Faith, Reverence

  "The God-Seeker". Book by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 59, 1949.

  4 Copy quote

• She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Dream, Country, Main Street

  Sinclair Lewis (1995). “Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott”, p.183, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• A village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to conquer the earth. Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicated to the sayings of Confucius.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Country, Pain, Ignorance

  "Main Street". Book by Sinclair Lewis, 1920.

  11 Copy quote

• The middle class, that prisoner of the barbarian 20th century.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Class, Barbarians, Century

  8 Copy quote

• Fortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities. Now and then I have, for my books or myself, been somewhat warmly denounced -- there was one good pastor in California who upon reading my Elmer Gantry desired to lead a mob and lynch me, while another holy man in the state of Maine wondered if there was no respectable and righteous way of putting me in jail.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Reading, Struggle, Book

  Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Sinclair Lewis (1931). “Why Sinclair Lewis got the Nobel prize”

  4 Copy quote

• When you think that most of us are doomed by divine grace to roast in hell, to say nothing of mortgages and hail and bad crops and extravagant womenfolks, 'tain't any laughing matter!

  Sinclair Lewis

  Thinking, Laughing, Grace

  "The God-Seeker". Book by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 3, 1949.

  4 Copy quote

• Vast is the power of cities to reclaim the wanderer.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Cities, Wanderers

  Sinclair Lewis (2008). “Babbitt: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition”, p.112, ReadHowYouWant.com

  6 Copy quote

• Paris is one of the largest, and certainly it is the pleasantest, of modern American cities.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Cities, Paris, Modern

  Sinclair Lewis (1956). “Dodsworth”

  4 Copy quote

• You've been telling us about how to secure peace, but come on, now, General-just among us Rotarians and Rotary Anns-'fess up! With your great experience, don't you honest, cross-your-heart, think that perhaps-just maybe-when a country has gone money-mad, like all our labor unions and workmen, with their propaganda to hoist income taxes, so that the thrifty and industrious have to pay for the shiftless ne'er-do-weels, then maybe, to save their lazy souls and get some iron into them, a war might be a good thing? Come on, now, tell your real middle name, Mong General!

  Sinclair Lewis

  Country, Real, War

  5 Copy quote

• The one thing that can be more disconcerting than intelligent hatred is demanding love.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Intelligent, Hatred, One Thing

  Sinclair Lewis (1995). “Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott”, p.221, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• I can not understand why ministers presume to deliver sermons every week at appointed hours because it is humanly impossible for inspirations to come with clock-like regularity

  Sinclair Lewis

  Inspiration, Impossible, Week

  19 Copy quote

• It might be the doing of Satan, in whom Aaron anxiously believed with all of his being except, perhaps, his mind.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Mind, Might, Satan

  "The God-Seeker". Book by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 4, 1949.

  5 Copy quote

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