All Nathanael West Quotes
- Like a dead man, only friction could make him warm or violence make him mobile. Dead
- No dream ever entirely disappears. Somewhere it troubles some unfortunate person and some day, when that person has been sufficiently troubled, it will be reproduced… Been
- Every child, everywhere; in the whole world there was not one child who was not gravely, sweetly dancing. Child
- Man spends a great deal of time making order out of chaos, yet insists that the emotions be disordered. I order my emotions: I am… Chaos
- Prayers for the condemned man will be offered on an adding machine. Numbers constitute the only universal language. Adding
- Betty took him for a walk in the zoo and he was amused by her evident belief in the curative power of animals. She seemed… Amused
- Let him ride a horse. He's a cowboy ain't he? Cowboy
- Feeling is of the heart and nerves and the crudeness of its expression has nothing to do with its intensity. Crudeness
- Numbers constitute the only universal language. Communication
- It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that need are. But… Beauty
- But whether he was happy or not was hard to say. Probably he was neither, just as a plant is neither. Funny
- At college, and perhaps for a year afterwards, they had believed in literature, had believed in Beauty and in personal expression as an absolute end.… Absolute
- He felt as though his heart were a bomb, a complicated bomb that would result in a simple explosion, wrecking the world without rocking it. Bomb
- He smoked a cigarette, standing in the dark and listening to her undress. She made sea sounds; something flapped like a sail; there was the… Beside
- Crowds of people moved through the streets with a dream-like violence. Crowds
- He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain. Animal
- He thought of how calm he was. His calm was so perfect that he could not destroy it even by being conscious of it. Calm
- Her sureness was based on the power to limit experience arbitrarily. Arbitrarily
- Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears. Benefit
- You once said to me that I talk like a man in a book. I not only talk, but think and feel like one. I… Begin
- Art Is a Way Out. Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the débris of failure, look for newer… Art
- Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears. When they finish, they feel better. But to those without hope, whose anguish is basic… Anguish