Sinclair Lewis Quotes

People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
Sinclair Lewis
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.
Sinclair Lewis
Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.
Sinclair Lewis
He was afraid that the world struggle today was not of Communism against Fascism, but of tolerance against the bigotry that was preached equally by Communism and Fascism. But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word “Fascism” and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty. For they were thieves not only of wages but of honor. To their purpose they could quote not only Scripture but Jefferson.
Sinclair Lewis
And why, she began to ask, did she rage against individuals? Not individuals but institutions are the enemies, and they most afflict the disciples who the most generously serve them. They insinuate their tyranny under a hundred guises and pompous names, such as Polite Society, the Family, the Church, Sound Business, the Party, the Country, the Superior White Race; and the only defense against them, Carol beheld, was unembittered laughter.
Sinclair Lewis
If a queen comes to America, crowds fill the station squares, and attendant British journalists rejoice, 'You see: the American Cousins are as respectful to Royalty as we are.'But the Americans have read of queens since babyhood. they want to see one queen, once, and if another came to town next week, with twice as handsome a crown, she would not draw more than two small boys and an Anglophile.Americans want to see one movie star, one giraffe, one jet plance, one murder, but only one. They run up a skyscraper or the fame of generals and evangelists and playwrights in one week and tear them all down in an hour, and the mark of excellence everywhere is 'under new management'.
Sinclair Lewis
Is it just possible that the most vigorous and boldest idealists have been the worst enemies of human progress instead of its greatest creators? Possible that plain men with the humble trait of minding their own business will rank higher in the heavenly hierarchy than all the plumed souls who have shoved their way in among the masses and insisted on savings them?
Sinclair Lewis
And though he had almost flunked in Greek, his thesis on 'Sixteen Ways of Paying a Church Debt' had won the ten-dollar prize in Practical Theology.
Sinclair Lewis
So much in a revolution is nothing but waiting.
Sinclair Lewis
NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged.
Sinclair Lewis
Thus 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 Lewis
Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.
Sinclair Lewis
Well, he'd get help from the Bible. It was all inspired, every word, no matter what scoffers like Jim said. He'd take the first text he turned to and talk on that.He opened on: 'Now THEREFORE, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which ARE beyond the river, be ye far from thence,' an injunction spirited but not at present helpful.
Sinclair Lewis
Babbit was an average father. He was affectionate, bullying, opinionated, ignorant, and rather wistful. Like most parents he enjoyed the game of waiting till the victim was clearly wrong, then virtuously pouncing.
Sinclair Lewis
You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.
Sinclair Lewis
- What do you expect? Think we were sent into the world to have a soft time and what is it? Float on flowery beds of ease? Think Man was just made to be happy?- Why not? Though I've never discovered anybody that knew what the deuce Man really was made for!- Well, we know not just in the Bible alone, but it stands to reason a man who doesn't buckle down and do his duty, even if it does bore him sometimes, is nothing but a... well, he's simply a weakling. Mollycoddle, in fact! And what do you advocate? Come down to cases! If a man is bored by his wife, do you seriously mean he has a right to chuck her and take a sneak, or even kill himself?- Good 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 Lewis
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
Sinclair Lewis
If travel were so inspiring and informing a business...then the wisest men in the world would be deck hands on tramp steamers, Pullman porters, and Mormon missionaries.
Sinclair Lewis
It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.
Sinclair Lewis
The fact that none of these civic worriers had ever heard of such a case was unimportant, because they all had heard of somebody who had heard of it!
Sinclair Lewis
Oh, quit it! You're the possessor of a beautiful wife, a beautiful gas-stove, and you were going to forget all this race-hysteria.
Sinclair Lewis
I came trusting them. They beat me with rods of dullness. They don't know, they don't understand how agonizing their complacent dullness is. Like ants and August sun on a wound." - Carol Kennicott
Sinclair Lewis
Well, if that’s what you call being at peace, for heaven’s sake just warn me before you go to war, will you?
Sinclair Lewis
In a matter of weeks, he had learned that without suffering and doubt, there can be no whole human being.
Sinclair Lewis
There’s no stronger bulwark of sound conservatism than the evangelical church, and no better place to make friends who’ll help you to gain your rightful place in the community than in your own church-home!
Sinclair Lewis
Like every thoughtful parent in every age of history, Neil consoled himself, "My generation failed, but this new one is going to change the entire world, and go piously to the polls even on rainy election-days, and never drink more than one cocktail, and end all war.
Sinclair Lewis
When Buzz gets in, he won't be having any parade of wounded soldiers. That'll be bad Fascist psychology. All those poor devils he'll hide away in institutions, and just bring out the lively young human slaughter cattle in uniforms.
Sinclair Lewis
It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.
Sinclair Lewis
I was feeling rational and restless, which is horrible for watching movies
Sinclair Lewis
The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.
Sinclair Lewis