Sinclair Lewis Quotes

63 quotes in 863 categories

• It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.
• People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
• Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.
• It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.
• Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.
• Writers kid themselves-about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a…
• A sensational event was changing from the brown suit to the gray the contents of his pockets. He was earnest about these objects. They were…
• Pugnacity is a form of courage, but a very bad form.
• When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
• 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…
• 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…
• Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and…
• Fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag,
• When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and will claim the name of 100-percent Americanism
• Being a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue.
• 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…
• There are dozens of young poets and fictioneers most of them a little insane in the tradition of James Joyce, who, however insane they may…
• Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one's business, to be seen…
• I love America, but I don't like it.
• Good Lord, I don't know what 'rights' a man has! And I don't know the solution of boredom. If I did, I'd be the one…

Browse Sinclair Lewis Quotes by Category