154 Quotes by John Dos Passos

No, you are saying to yourselves what a bore he is, what use is he to society? He has no money, he has no pretty wife, no good conversation, no tips on the stockmarket. He's a useless fardel on society.... The artist is a fardel.

But the man with the knowhow, the boy who thinks up the gadgets, they can't put him out. I can outsmart 'em at their own game too. We got somethin' bigger down here than they ever dreamed of. And the Administration all fixed up. This is goin' to be big, little girl, the biggest thing you ever saw and I'm goin' to let you in on it. We'll be on easystreet from now on. And when you're on easystreet you'll all forget poor old Charley Anderson the boy that put you wise.

Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave themselves webs.

But you’re out of another world old kid … You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.

Do you know how long God took to destroy the Tower of Babel, folks? Seven minutes. Do you know how long the Lord God took to destroy Babylon and Nineveh? Seven minutes. There’s more wickedness in one block in New York City than there was in a square mile in Nineveh, and how long do you think the Lord God of Sabboath will take to destroy New York City and Brooklyn and the Bronx? Seven seconds. Seven Seconds.

Then all at once he´d hear his own voice enunciating clearly and firmly, feel its reverberance along the walls and ceiling, feel ears growing tense, men and women leaning forward in their chairs, see the rows of faces quite clearly, the groups of people who couldn´t find seats crowding at the doors. Phrases like `protest, massaction, united working-class of this country and the world, revolution´, would light up the eyes and faces under him like the glare of a bonfire.

y. I told them to admire us for the hope we still havethat there is enough goodness in man to use the omnipotence science hasgiven him to ennoble his life on earth instead of degrading it. Self government,through dangers and distortions and failures, is the Americancause. Faith in self government, when all is said and done, is faith in theeventual goodness of man

There was Babylon and Nineveh; they were built of brick. Athens was gold marble columns. Rome was held up on broad arches of rubble. In Constantinople the minarets flame like great candles round the Golden Horn… Steel, glass, tile, concrete will be the materials of the skyscraper. Crammed on the narrow island the millionwindowed buildings will just glittering, pyramid on pyramid like the white cloudhead above a thunderstorm.

all right we are two nations