The 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."

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.

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.

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.

Men die, but the plutocracy is immortal; and it is necessary that fresh generations should be trained to its service.

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.

Don't be a writer. Writing is an escape from something. You be a scientist.