All archives
Previous Issue (6 February 2010) | Current month | Next Issue (8 February 2010)
Quotes of the Day for 7 February 2010 – Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis was born at Sauk Centre, Minnesota on this day in 1885. He was an avid and somewhat romantic reader as a boy, he attempted to run away from home at age thirteen to be a drummer boy in the Spanish-American War. He graduated from Yale in 1908 and set to work writing romantic poems and stories. He was awarded, but refused, a Pulitzer in 1926. He was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, a prize he accepted. The Nobel Committee praised "his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters", but at least four of his novels were banned at various times.
You will find an expanded profile, photo, additional biographical links, and all quotes from this author on the author's Notable Quotable page.
The quotes:
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
All of them perceived that American Democracy did not imply any equality of wealth, but did demand a wholesome sameness of thought, dress, painting, morals, and vocabulary.
There are two races of people, only two, and they live side by side. His calls mine 'neurotic'; mine calls his 'stupid'.
Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.
We have the power to bore people long after we are dead.
He was born to be a senator. He never said anything important, and he always said it sonorously.
All from Sinclair Lewis, 1885 - 1951
Do you see an error on this page? A typo, a character that is messed up, a misattribution? Please let us know!
