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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.

Sinclair Lewis

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Sinclair Lewis
Journalist
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Sauk Centre
Minnesota
Harry Sinclair Lewis
National
Decline
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Pulitzer
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Declined
Art
Prize
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More quotes by Sinclair Lewis

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Pugnacity is a form of courage, but a very bad form.
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It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.
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We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all.
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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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Curiously, neither God nor the devil may wear modern dress, but must retain Grecian vestments.
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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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Cure the evils of Democracy by the evils of Fascism! Funny therapeutics! I've heard of their curing syphilis by giving the patient malaria, but I've never heard of their curing malaria by giving the patient syphilis.
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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
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What are these unheard of sins you condemn so much - and like so well?
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Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.
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A man takes a drink, the drink takes another, and the drink takes the man.
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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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Winter is not a season in the North Middlewest it is an industry.
Sinclair Lewis
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There was much conversation, most of which sounded like the rest of it.
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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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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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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I must say I'm not very fond of oratory that's so full of energy it hasn't any room for facts.
Sinclair Lewis
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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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Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it.
Sinclair Lewis