Quotes from Sinclair Lewis

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.

Our American professors like their literature clear, cold, pure and very dead.

The trouble with this country is that there are too many people going about saying, The trouble with this country is...

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

There are two insults no human will endure. The assertion that he has no sense of humor and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.

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

We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all.

I think perhaps we want a more conscious life.

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

He loved the people just as much as he feared and detested persons.

The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store. Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill.

It isn't what you earn but how spend it that fixes your class.

The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.

It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.

You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.

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.

Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.

Most troubles are unnecessary. We have Nature beaten; we can make her grow wheat; we can keep warm when she sends blizzards. So we raise the devil just for pleasure--wars, politics, race-hatreds, labor-disputes.

So much in a revolution is nothing but waiting.

realized that this country has gone so flabby that any gang daring enough and unscrupulous enough, and smart enough not to seem illegal, can grab hold of the entire government and have all the power and applause and salutes, all the money and palaces and willin' women they want.

Why, America's the only free nation on earth. Besides! Country's too big for a revolution. No, no! Couldn't happen here!

NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged.

A country that tolerates evil means- evil manners, standards of ethics-for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end.

You," Said Dr. Yavitch, "are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want -- and what I want now is a drink.