It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.

Pugnacity is a form of courage, but a very bad form.

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

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.

Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.

My 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.

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."