Quotes from Sinclair Lewis

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.

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.

People will buy anything that is one to a customer.

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.

Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead.

Curiously, neither God nor the devil may wear modern dress, but must retain Grecian vestments.

Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it.

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.

There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble.

What is love? It is the morning and the evening star.

Love is the one thing that can really sure-enough lighten all of life's dark clouds.

The middle class, that prisoner of the barbarian 20th century.

The most important part of living is not the living but the pondering upon it.

The game (baseball)was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called "patriotism" and "love of sport."

When audiences come to see us authors lecture, it is largely in the hope that we'll be funnier to look at than to read.

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.

It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.

If I ever hear that 'can't make an omelet' phrase again, I'll start doing a little murder myself! It's used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi, or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men's souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!

Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to stop and speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.

The author says one character's definition of a classic is any book he'd heard of before he was thirty.

It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better off than others.

Call me a socialist or any blame thing you want to, as long as you grab hold of the other end of the cross-cut saw with me and help slash the big logs of Poverty and Intolerance to pieces.

If that woman is on the side of the angels, then I have no choice; I must be on the side of the devil.