Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one’s business, to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements from being still worse.
SINCLAIR LEWISAs 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.
More Sinclair Lewis Quotes
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Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn “reasonable” and become your enemies.
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It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.
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If travel were so inspiring and informing a business … then the wisest men in the world would be deck hands on tramp steamers.
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A village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to conquer the earth.
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When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.
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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.
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Why is it that traveling Americans are always so dreadful?
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if men and women would be human beings instead of just business men, or plumbers, or army officers, or commuters, or educators, or authors, or clubwomen, or traveling salesmen, or Socialists, or Republicans, or Salvation Army leaders, or wearers of cloths.
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Writers kid themselves-about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods.
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Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
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Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.
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Funny how the world always praises its opera-singers so much and pays ’em so well and then starves its shoemakers, and yet it needs good shoes so much more than it needs opera–or war or fiction.
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That nation is proudest and noblest and most exalted which has the greatest number of really great men.
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Think how much better it is to criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to them, scrupulously.
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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.
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