A collection of quotes and thoughts by Sinclair Lewis on writing, stories, motivation, inspire, winter, fascism, God, humor, religion, morality and idealism.
58 Great Quotes By Sinclair Lewis That Will Keep You Pumped Up
Sinclair Lewis was a distinguished American short-story writer, playwright and novelist who became the first writer from the country to receive Nobel Laureate in Literature. Sinclair was a bit reserved as a child, and books interested him more than people. During his days in high school, his works were published by the ‘Sauk Centre Herald’. In 1902, he completed his high school and moved to ‘Oberlin College’, before attending the ‘Yale University’, where his literary career blossomed. Sinclair moved to Washington DC, in 1910 while writing for the ‘Yale Courant’ and ‘Yale Literary Magazine’, besides working with the ‘Saturday Evening Post’. By 1919, Sinclair penned several books and worked on his most exalted novel, ‘Main Street’. His 1925 novel, ‘Arrow Smith’ won him the ‘Pulitzer Prize’ in 1926. In 1930, Sinclair became the first American to get the ‘Noble Prize For Literature’. In his later years he became an alcohol addict, and died in Rome in 1951. Sinclair set example to people, and continues to be an example through his work, thoughts, writings and books. We bring to you famous quotes and sayings by Sinclair Lewis which have been excerpted from his work and life. Take a look!
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.
Sinclair Lewis
Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.
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.
Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.
Sinclair Lewis
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.
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.
Sinclair Lewis
Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself.
She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.
Sinclair Lewis
If travel were so inspiring and informing a business...then the wisest men in the world would be deck hands on tramp steamers, Pullman porters, and Mormon missionaries.
Sinclair Lewis
Thus Carol hit upon the tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth...
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?
He said brokenly many things beautiful in their common-ness.
Sinclair Lewis
So much in a revolution is nothing but waiting.
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.
Sinclair Lewis
Never was a Family more insistent on learning one another’s movements than were the Bunch. All of them volubly knew, or indignantly desired to know, where all the others had been every minute of the week.
Author sees the "congested idealism" of the generally discontent as reservoir that will support centralized power even while disagreeing with many specific provisions.
He had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason
Sinclair Lewis
The author says one character's definition of a classic is any book he'd heard of before he was thirty.
Sinclair Lewis
NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged.
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.
Sinclair Lewis
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
And after saying good-by to him at the station, Babbitt returned to his office to realize that he faced a world which, without Paul, was meaningless.
Sinclair Lewis
To the connoisseur of scenes, nothing is more enjoyable than a thorough, melodramatic, egoistic humility.
Sinclair Lewis
She bought a budget-plan account book and made her budgets as exact as budgets are likely to be when they lack budgets.
Sinclair Lewis
It's one of our favorite American myths that broad plains necessarily make broad minds, and high mountains make high purpose.
Sinclair Lewis
He had learned how to assemble Jewish texts, Greek philosophy, and Middle-Western evangelistic anecdotes into a sermon. And he had learned that poverty was blessed, but that bankers make the best deacons.
Sinclair Lewis
Your lips are for songs about rivers in the morning and lakes at twilight.
Sinclair Lewis
She found beauty in the children.
Sinclair Lewis
Vast is the power of cities to reclaim the wanderer.
Sinclair Lewis
Whatever she might become she would never be static.
She laughed at herself when she saw that she had expected to be at once a heretic and a returned hero; she was very reasonable and merry about it; and it hurt just as much as ever.
Sinclair Lewis
She did not yet know the immense ability of the world to be casually cruel and proudly dull,
Sinclair Lewis
Lord, why can't the women let you alone? Just because once or twice, seven hundred million years ago, you were a poor fool, why can't they let you forget it?
And though he had almost flunked in Greek, his thesis on 'Sixteen Ways of Paying a Church Debt' had won the ten-dollar prize in Practical Theology.
Sinclair Lewis
The handsome dining room of the Hotel Wessex, with its gilded plaster shields and the mural depicting the Green Mountains, had been reserved for the Ladies' Night Dinner of the Fort Beulah Rotary Club.
Sinclair Lewis
In a world of groceries and sermons
Sinclair Lewis
The Wonderlust--probably it's a worse affliction than the Wanderlust.
He liked three kinds of films: pretty bathing girls with bare legs; policemen or cowboys and an industrious shooting of revolvers; and funny fat men who ate spaghetti.
Sinclair Lewis
On the walk, like shredded lovely flesh, were the petals of the last gallant rose.
HIS march to greatness was not without disastrous stumbling.
Sinclair Lewis
The shame of emotion overpowered them; they cursed a little, to prove they were good rough fellows; and in a mellow silence, Babbitt whistling while Paul hummed, they paddled back to the hotel.
Sinclair Lewis
Winter is not a season in the North Middlewest; it is an industry.
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. )
