Life 55 Down with dull lives. "But I do know that about ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 104 Dreaming of being serene. "But he pictured loafing with Paul Riesling beside a lake in Maine…as overpowering and imaginative as homesickness…had never seen Maine, yet he beheld the shrouded mountains, the tranquil lake of evening." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 127 "He was converted to serenity." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 190 Life is mechanical. "With no Vergil Gunches before whom to set his face in resolute optimism, he [Babbitt] beheld and half admitted that he beheld, his way of life incredibly mechanical; mechanical business—a brisk selling of badly built houses; mechanical religion—a dry, hard church, shut off from the real life of the streets, inhumanly respectable as a top-hat; mechanical golf and dinner parties and bridge and conversation; save with Paul Riesling, mechanical friendships—back-slapping and jocular…." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 190 Pretentiousness (pretending to be what you are not) destroys the good moments in life. "He [Babbitt] saw the years, the brilliant winter days and all the long sweet afternoons which were meant for summery meadows, lost in such brittle pretentiousness." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 191 He hated cajoling men he hated. "He thought…of cajoling men he hated….." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 221 The futility of life. "It was coming to him [Babbitt] that perhaps all life as he knew it and vigorously practiced it was futile; that heaven as portrayed by the Reverend Dr. John Jennison Drew was neither probable nor very interesting; that he hadn’t much pleasure out of making money; that it was of doubtful work to rear children merely that they might rear children who would rear children." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 242 What do we run away from? "Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 242 He had only one choice. "He knew he was slinking back [to Zenith] not because it was what he longed to do but because it was all he could do." Lewis, Babbitt.
Life 00 Credo. [Paul DeKruif’s] ambition is to “grow old very slowly and stay young very long.” Intro to Paul DeKruif's Microbe Hunters.
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