Quotes from John Dos Passos

Weißt du, Jimmy, ich glaube, es wird ganz lustig sein, ein Weilchen in einer Redaktion zu sitzen. Ich fände es schon sehr lustig, wenn ich _irgendwo_ sitzen dürfte... Na ja, da bleibe ich eben zu Haus und passe auf das Baby auf. Sei nicht so verbittert, Jimmy, es ist ja nur vorübergehend. Das ganze Leben ist nur vorübergehend. (S. 250)

between Don Quixote the mystic and Sancho Panza the sensualist there is no middle ground.

Hello. I want to speak to Mr. Jack Cunningham please. . . . Hello. Is this Mr. Cunningham's office? Mr. James Merivale speaking. . . . Out of town. . . . And when will he be back? . . . Hum." He strode back along the hall. "The damn scoundrel's out of town." "All the years I've known him," said the little lady in the round hat, "that has always been where he was.

The twentieth century will be American. American thought will dominate it. American progress will give it color and direction. American deeds will make it illustrious. Civilization will never lose its hold on Shanghai. Civilization will never depart from Hongkong. The gates of Peking will never again be closed to the methods of modern man. The regeneration of the world, physical as well as moral, has begun, and revolutions never move backwards.

Too goddam many lawyers mixed up in this. Run the sonsobitches out. If they resists shoot 'em, that's what I says to the Governor, but they're all these sonsobitches a lawyers fussin' everythin' up all the time with warrants and habeas corpus and longwinded rigmarole. My ass to habeas corpus.

Le soleil, ruisselant dans le bureau sous les stores baissés, taille dans la fumée des cigares une coupe oblique semblable à de la soie mouillée.

But the man with the knowhow, the boy who thinks up the gadgets, they can't put him out. I can outsmart 'em at their own game too. We got somethin' bigger down here than they ever dreamed of. And the Administration all fixed up. This is goin' to be big, little girl, the biggest thing you ever saw and I'm goin' to let you in on it. We'll be on easystreet from now on. And when you're on easystreet you'll all forget poor old Charley Anderson the boy that put you wise.

Take a plunge, take a plunge . . . they're all crooks and gamblers anyway . . . take a plunge and come up with your hands full, pockets full, bankaccount full, vaults full of money. If I only dared take the risk. Fool to waste your time fuming about it.

What I need is a whiskey and soda to settle those cocktails." "I'll watch you. I'm a working man. I must be able to tell between the news that's fit and the news that's not fit. . . . God I dont want to start talking about that. It's all so criminally silly. . . . I'll say that this cocktail sure does knock you for a loop.

Heya mola, heya mola diye ÅŸark? söylüyorlard? bara yaslanm??, bulant?yla baÅŸ edebilmek için ÅŸarap içerken.

Print so easily spins a web of the commonplace over the fine outlines of life.

and you wondered if you'd be alive next time Halley's Comet came round

He was one of the grand old men until the churches and the congregations got wind that he was an infidel and believed in Darwin. Luther Burbank had never a thought of evil, selecting improved hybrids for America those sunny years in Santa Rosa. But he brushed down a wasp's nest that time; he wouldn't give up Darwin and Natural Selection and they stung him and he died puzzled.

you dont like the stars in Old Glory Then go back to your land across the sea To the land from which you came Whatever be its name

Golly, I could drink a cup of coffee," said Mac. "We'll have swell coffee in Seattle, damned if we won't, Mac.

Ou my throat." "Ruth I wish you werent taking that X-ray treatment. . . . I've heard it's very dangerous. Dont let me alarm you about it my dear . . . but I have heard of cases of cancer contracted that way." "That's nonsense Billy. . . . That's only when X-rays are improperly used, and it takes years of exposure. . . . No I think this Dr. Warner's a remarkable man.

Afterwards they walked east along Fourteenth. "Dutch cant we go to your room?" "I ain't got no room. The old stiff wont let me stay and she's got all my stuff. Honest if I dont get a job this week I'm goin to a recruiting sergeant an re-enlist.

The fact of the matter is that an honest man wont soil his hands with politics, and he's given no inducement to take public office." "That's true, a live man, nowadays, wants more money, needs more money than he can make honestly in public life. . . . Naturally the best men turn to other channels.

Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in time with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to the right or to the left. He would do as the others did.

there can be no reason to believe these officers of an established news organization serving newspapers all over the country failed to realize their responsibilities at a moment of supreme significance to the people of this country.

Spain as a modern centralized nation is an illusion, a very unfortunate one; for the present atrophy, the desolating resultlessness of a century of revolution, may very well be due in large measure to the artificial imposition of centralized government on a land essentially centrifugal.

Do you know I think it is just terrible," said Mrs. Merivale when she had done carving, "the way you fellows wont tell us any of your experiences over there. . . . Lots of them must have been remarkably interesting. Jimmy I should think you'd write a book about your experiences.

But what was it?" "There was a woman upstairs who did illegal operations, abortions. . . . That was what stopped up the plumbing.

Everything published goes down the same chute out of the overbright glare of publicity into oblivion.