There are so many people in the world who are eager to do for you things that you do not wish done, provided only that you will do for them things that you don’t wish to do.
SINCLAIR LEWISFortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities.
More Sinclair Lewis Quotes
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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.
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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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Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country.
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Life is hard and astonishingly complicated…. No one great reform will make it easy.
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In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.
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Curiously, neither God nor the devil may wear modern dress, but must retain Grecian vestments.
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I can not understand why ministers presume to deliver sermons every week at appointed hours because it is humanly impossible for inspirations to come with clock-like regularity
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The trouble with this country is that there are too many people going about saying, “The trouble with this country is….”
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The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he was aware of devastating desires-to rush places in fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. … He perceived that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. -chapter 8
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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.
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I must say I’m not very fond of oratory that’s so full of energy it hasn’t any room for facts.
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You,” Said Dr. Yavitch, “are a middle-road liberal, and you haven’t the slightest idea what you want.
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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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It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.
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It is the irritation of getting tickets, packing, finding trains, lying in bouncing berths, washing without water, digging out passports, and fighting through customs.
SINCLAIR LEWIS