Sinclair Lewis quotes

Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist and playwright, recognized for his sharp social criticism of American life. His works such as "Main Street" and "Babbitt" satirized middle-class culture and the limitations of small-town society. He became the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Here are 146 of his quotes:

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation. (Sinclair Lewis)
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
I must say I'm not very fond of oratory that's so full of energy it hasn't any room for facts. ~ Martin, Ch. 22. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Being a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Myron reflected that there are so many people in the world who are eager to do for you things that you do not wish done, provided only that you will do for them things that you don't wish to do. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
When you think that most of us are doomed by divine grace to roast in hell, to say nothing of mortgages and hail and bad crops and extravagant womenfolks, 'tain't any laughing matter! View quote
Sinclair Lewis
The trouble with this country is... that there're too many people going about saying "The trouble with this country is-" View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
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. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
The greatest mystery about a human being is not his reaction to sex or praise, but the manner in which he contrives to put in twenty-four hours a day. It is this which puzzles the longshoreman about the clerk, the Londoner about the bushman. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all. (Sinclair Lewis)
I have faith in Faith, I have reverence for all true Reverence. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
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 is better off than others. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
She did her work with the thoroughness of mind which reveres details and never quite understands them. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Fine, large, meaningless, general terms like romance and business can always be related. They take the place of thinking, and are highly useful to optimists and lecturers. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which is so easy to come by. To be 'intellectual' or 'artistic' or, in their own word, to be 'highbrow,' is to be priggish and of dubious virtue. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
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 Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn't a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
There was much conversation, most of which sounded like the rest of it. (Sinclair Lewis)
It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
I was brought up to believe that the Christian God wasn't a scared and compromising public servant, but the creator of the whole merciless truth, and I reckon that training spoiled me-I actually took my teachers seriously! View quote
Sinclair Lewis
It might be the doing of Satan, in whom Aaron anxiously believed with all of his being except, perhaps, his mind. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Indians, of course, have no 'theology,' and indeed no word for the system of credulity in which the white priests arrange for God, who must be entirely bewildered by it, a series of excuses for his failures. View quote
Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis - Image
Occupation: American Writer
Born: February 7, 1885
Died: January 10, 1951
Quotes count: 146
Wikipedia: Sinclair Lewis

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