Booth Tarkington quotes

Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist, celebrated for his vivid portrayals of Midwestern life. His novels "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Alice Adams" both won the Pulitzer Prize. He is regarded as one of the most significant chroniclers of early 20th-century American society. Here are 10 of his quotes:

Gossip is never fatal until it is denied.

Booth Tarkington

Whatever does not pretend at all has style enough.

Booth Tarkington

Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium.

Booth Tarkington

Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions.

Booth Tarkington

There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.

Booth Tarkington

So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some.

Booth Tarkington

The only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away from her - especially if that is what she desires.

Booth Tarkington

Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for old age.

Booth Tarkington

The somewhere we're goin' to, and got to go to if we don't want to get wiped out, it's somewhere everlastingly and eternally ahead! It's like to-morrow; when we get there we aren't there; we got to keep goin', and we got to everlastingly and eternally keep goin' – and goin' fast! If we don't, the Almighty hasn't got a bit o' use for us; He turns us right into dust and scattered old bones, and nothin's left of our whole country and our finest cities except some street paving and a few cellars with weeds in 'em.

Booth Tarkington