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Pugnacity is a form of courage, but a very bad form.

Sinclair Lewis

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Sinclair Lewis
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Writer
Sauk Centre
Minnesota
Harry Sinclair Lewis
Courage
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More quotes by Sinclair Lewis

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In everything was the spirit of children's play - not the rule-ridden, time-killing play of adults that is a preparation for death, but the busy and credulous play of children that is a preparation for life.
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You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.
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When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.
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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.
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It isn't what you earn but how spend it that fixes your class.
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When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and will claim the name of 100-percent Americanism
Sinclair Lewis
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Funny how the world always praises its opera-singers so much and pays 'em so well and then starves its shoemakers, and yet it needs good shoes so much more than it needs opera--or war or fiction.
Sinclair Lewis
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People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
Sinclair Lewis
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His name was George F. Babbitt, and . . . he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.
Sinclair Lewis
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In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman.
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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.
Sinclair Lewis
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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 be, have refused to be genteel and traditional and dull.
Sinclair Lewis
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You, Said Dr. Yavitch, are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want -- and what I want now is a drink.
Sinclair Lewis
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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.
Sinclair Lewis
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What are these unheard of sins you condemn so much - and like so well?
Sinclair Lewis
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The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he was aware of devastating desires—to rush places in fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. ... He perceived that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. —chapter 8
Sinclair Lewis
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The game (baseball)was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called patriotism and love of sport.
Sinclair Lewis
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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 measured merriment.
Sinclair Lewis
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Men die, but the plutocracy is immortal and it is necessary that fresh generations should be trained to its service.
Sinclair Lewis
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Winter is not a season in the North Middlewest it is an industry.
Sinclair Lewis