I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers... coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia now — and we're going to try our hands at it.
Sinclair LewisWhen audiences come to see us authors lecture, it is largely in the hope that we'll be funnier to look at than to read.
Sinclair LewisDamn 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 LewisHis name was George F. Babbitt, and . . . he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.
Sinclair LewisIn fact, the whole thing about prohibition is this: it isn't the initial cost, it's the humidity.
Sinclair LewisTo 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 LewisMen die, but the plutocracy is immortal; and it is necessary that fresh generations should be trained to its service.
Sinclair LewisShe did her work with the thoroughness of a mind which reveres details and never quite understands them.
Sinclair LewisThere 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 LewisHe 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 LewisIt is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.
Sinclair LewisDo you think it's so snobbish, to want to see something besides one's fellow citizens abroad?
Sinclair LewisThat nation is proudest and noblest and most exalted which has the greatest number of really great men.
Sinclair LewisBeing a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue.
Sinclair LewisThe game (baseball)was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called "patriotism" and "love of sport."
Sinclair LewisThere are dozens of young poets and fictioneers most of them a little insane in the tradition of James Joyce, who, however insane they may be, have refused to be genteel and traditional and dull.
Sinclair LewisWriters have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead.
Sinclair LewisYou," 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 LewisMy objection to the church isn't that the preachers are cruel, hypocritical, actually wicked, though some of them are that, too - think of how many are arrested for selling fake stock, for seducing 14-year-old girls in orphanages under their care, for arson, for murder. An it isn't so much that the church is in bondage to Big Business and doctrines as laid down by millionaires - though a lot of churches are that, too. My chief objection is that 99% of sermons and Sunday School teachings are so agonizingly dull.
Sinclair LewisIn 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 LewisThere is no greater compliment to the Jews than the fact that the degree of their unpopularity is always the scientific measure of the cruelty and silliness of the regime under which they live.
Sinclair LewisGood 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 LewisA sensational event was changing from the brown suit to the gray the contents of his pockets. He was earnest about these objects. They were of eternal importance, like baseball or the Republican Party.
Sinclair LewisIt is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.
Sinclair LewisThus Carol hit upon the tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth.
Sinclair LewisIt is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.
Sinclair LewisThe cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he was aware of devastating desires—to rush places in fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. ... He perceived that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. —chapter 8
Sinclair LewisWriting 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 LewisYou'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 LewisWhat is Love? Listen! It is the rainbow that stands out, in all its glorious many-colored hues, illuminating and making glad again the dark clouds of life. It is the morning and the evening star, that in glad refulgence, there on the awed horizon, call Nature's hearts to an uplifted rejoicing in God's marvelous firmament!
Sinclair Lewis