299 Quotes by Sinclair Lewis

Well, if that’s what you call being at peace, for heaven’s sake just warn me before you go to war, will you?

Democracy—here and in Britain and France, it hasn't been so universal a sniveling slavery as Naziism in Germany, such an imagination-hating, pharisaic materialism as Russia—even if it has produced industrialists like you, Frank, and bankers like you, R. C., and given you altogether too much power and money. On the whole, with scandalous exceptions, Democracy's given the ordinary worker more dignity than he ever had.

Well, he'd get help from the Bible. It was all inspired, every word, no matter what scoffers like Jim said. He'd take the first text he turned to and talk on that.He opened on: 'Now THEREFORE, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which ARE beyond the river, be ye far from thence,' an injunction spirited but not at present helpful.

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.

Babbit was an average father. He was affectionate, bullying, opinionated, ignorant, and rather wistful. Like most parents he enjoyed the game of waiting till the victim was clearly wrong, then virtuously pouncing.

Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn “reasonable” and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to stop and speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.

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.

These folks from New York are all so high and mighty, with their skyscrapers and banquets and everything that t if we don't guess they come from there when we first lay an eye on 'em, we just show ourselves as awful rubes. Oh, yes! Yes. You can always tell 'em by their touch-me-not ways.