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To a true-blue professor of literature in an American university, literature is not something that a plain human being, living today, painfully sits down to produce. No; it is something dead.

Sinclair Lewis

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.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Adult Children Death Everything Kill Play Preparation Ridden Rule Spirit Time
The trouble with this country is that there are too many people going about saying, “The trouble with this country is….”
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Country Many People Say Trouble
She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Back Country Dream Far Found Herself Main Snatch Street
Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Become Compulsion Every Obedient Polite Safe Sterile Upon Writer
People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Anything Buy Customer One People
Indians, of course, have no “theology,” and indeed no word for the system of credulity in which the white priests arrange for God, who must be entirely bewildered by it, a series of excuses for his failures.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Arrange Country Course Cruelty God Indeed Must Priest System Theology
I have for myself no conceivable complaint to make, and yet for American literature in general, and its standing in a country where industrialism and finance and science flourish and the only arts that are vital and respected are architecture and the film, I have a considerable complaint.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Complaint Conceivable Country General Have Industrialism Literature Make Myself Stand Yet
People read fiction for emotion-not information
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Emotion Fiction Information People Read
I have faith in Faith, I have reverence for all true Reverence.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Faith Reverence True
In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Ago Art Decline Election Institute Letter National Price Protest Some Year
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.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Already Go Hand Made Plan Thousand Utpoi Want Wiser Year
With your great experience, don’t you honest, cross-your-heart, think that perhaps-just maybe-when a country has gone money-mad, like all our labor unions and workmen, with their propaganda to hoist income taxes.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Experience Gone Great Heart Honest Income Maybe Money Perhaps Propaganda Tax Union
Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Anyone Arrwe Bore Dead Else Long People Power Writer
You’re so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Earn Essential Immortal Morality Must Think Underneath
Paris is one of the largest, and certainly it is the pleasantest, of modern American cities.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Certainty City Country Largest Modern One Pair Pleasentest
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.
SINCLAIR LEWIS

Brown Change Content Event Object Pocket Sensational Suit Warn

To a true-blue professor of literature in an American university, literature is not something that a plain human being, living today, painfully sits down to produce. No; it is something dead.

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To a true-blue professor of literature in an American university, literature is not something that a plain human being, living today, painfully sits down to produce. No; it is something dead.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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