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

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.

His name was George F. Babbitt, and . . . he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.

When audiences come to see us authors lecture, it is largely in the hope that we'll be funnier to look at than to read.

Most troubles are unnecessary. We have Nature beaten; we can make her grow wheat; we can keep warm when she sends blizzards. So we raise the devil just for pleasure--wars, politics, race-hatreds, labor-disputes.

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

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.