“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.”

Curiously, neither God nor the devil may wear modern dress, but must retain Grecian vestments.

And that the pastor’s sermons, however dull they might seem at the time of taking, yet had a voodooistic power which ‘did a fellow good– kept him in touch with Higher Things.

In everything was the spirit of children’s play – not the rule-ridden, time-killing play of adults that is a preparation for death, but the busy and credulous play of children that is a preparation for life.

Writing is just work-there’s no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it’s still just work.

I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want — and what I want now is a drink.

We’re tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We’re tired of always deferring hope till the next generation.

Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.

Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it,

What are these unheard of sins you condemn so much – and like so well?

Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicated to the sayings of Confucius.

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.

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.

When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.

A sensational event was changing from the brown suit to the gray the contents of his pockets. He was earnest about these objects. They were of eternal importance, like baseball or the Republican Party.

Being a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue.

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.”