Nathanael West

“If you're not very busy, a grown man in the uniform of a Western Union boy should make you feel a little…

— Nathanael West

No dream ever entirely disappears. Somewhere it troubles some unfortunate person and some day, when that person has been sufficiently troubled, it…

— Nathanael West

“She wasn’t hard-boiled. It was just that she put love on a special plane, where a man without money or looks couldn’t…

— Nathanael West

“I'm going to be a star some day," she announced as though daring him to contradict her. "I'm sure you..." "It's my…

— Nathanael West

“He was giving birth to groups of words.”

— Nathanael West

Every child, everywhere; in the whole world there was not one child who was not gravely, sweetly dancing.

— Nathanael West

Like a dead man, only friction could make him warm or violence make him mobile.

— Nathanael West

“As far as he could discover, there were no signs of spring. The decay that covered the surface of the mottled ground…

— Nathanael West

Let him ride a horse. He's a cowboy ain't he?

— Nathanael West

Man spends a great deal of time making order out of chaos, yet insists that the emotions be disordered. I order my…

— Nathanael West

“Humanity...I'm a humanity lover. All the broken bastards...”

— Nathanael West

“The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack…

— Nathanael West

“Americans have dissipated their racial energy in an orgy of stone-breaking. In their few years they have broken more stones than did…

— Nathanael West

Betty took him for a walk in the zoo and he was amused by her evident belief in the curative power of…

— Nathanael West

“But the romantic atmosphere only heightened his feeling of icy fatness.”

— Nathanael West

“They haven’t the mental equipment for leisure.”

— Nathanael West

“It seems to me that someone must surely take the hint and write the life of Miss McGeeney, the woman who wrote…

— Nathanael West

“what goes on in the sea is of no interest to the rock”

— Nathanael West

“Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they’ve been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives…

— Nathanael West

“He felt like a bottle that is being slowly filled with warm, dirty warter.”

— Nathanael West

Numbers constitute the only universal language.

— Nathanael West

“You dedicate your life to the pursuit of pleasure. No over-indulgence, mind you, but knowing that your body is apleasure machine, you…

— Nathanael West

“He got out of bed in sections, like a poorly made automaton, and carried his hands into the bathroom. He turned on…

— Nathanael West

“...better a live bird in the jungle of the body than two stuffed birds on the library table.”

— Nathanael West

“The sun is a joke.”

— Nathanael West