Writers kid themselves-about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods.
SINCLAIR LEWISSure 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.
More Sinclair Lewis Quotes
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People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
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So that the thrifty and industrious have to pay for the shiftless ne’er-do-weels, then maybe, to save their lazy souls and get some iron into them, a war might be a good thing? Come on, now, tell your real middle name, Mong General!
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It isn’t what you earn but how spend it that fixes your class.
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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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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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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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Fortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities.
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There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.
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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.
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But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever.
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Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.
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He loved the people just as much as he feared and detested persons.
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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.
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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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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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Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.
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It might be the doing of Satan, in whom Aaron anxiously believed with all of his being except, perhaps, his mind.
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I love America, but I don’t like it.
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Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country.
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Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles, damn the men that run the shops, oh, damn their measured merriment.
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I was brought up to believe that the Christian God wasn’t a scared and compromising public servant, but the creator of the whole merciless truth, and I reckon that training spoiled me – I actually took my teachers seriously!
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Life is hard and astonishingly complicated…. No one great reform will make it easy.
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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.
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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.
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I have faith in Faith, I have reverence for all true Reverence.
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Is it possible that nobody has ever known that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won’t be for another thousand years?
SINCLAIR LEWIS