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."

Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.

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

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

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.

There was much conversation, most of which sounded like the rest of it.

You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.