Quotes: Babbitt. Banks. Baptism. Baseball.

Babbitt
Babbitt 322 Babbitt realizes that he can never be anything else than what he is. Mark Shorer, Afterword: "It is Babbitt’s tragedy that he can never be anything but Babbitt, and this he learns well before the end of the book...." Lewis, Babbitt.

Babbitt 323 When he is free, he [Babbitt] learns that he can never be free, but can only be what he is. Mark Shorer, Afterword: "...when he is free he is nothing at all...only self is the self that exists only within the circle of conformity." Lewis, Babbitt.

Banks
Banks 30 Metaphor for a bank: When you don't need money, they want to give it to you. When you need money they won't. "A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain." Robert Frost. Portable Curmudgeon.

Baptism
1. Baptism 235 Baptism is a "devil-chasing rite." "I refuse to subject him [the baby] to any devil-chasing rites [Baptism]." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Baseball
Baseball 14 On walking into a baseball stadium. " …sees the great open horseshoe of the grand stand and that unfolding vision of the grass that always seems to mean he has stepped outside his life…." DeLillo, Underworld.

Baseball 14 Warm-up pitches. "…he hears the warm-up pitches crack into the catcher’s mitt; a series of reports that carry a comet’s tail of secondary sound." DeLillo, Underworld.

Baseball 16 " …little waxy napkins they got with their hot dogs…." DeLillo, Underworld.

Baseball 20 "Get yer peanuts." "…circus-catching dimes on the wing and then sailing peanut bags into people’s chests." DeLillo, Underworld.

Baseball 25 Radio re-creations of baseball games in a studio. Russ Hodges: "I spent years in a studio doing re-creations of big league games …telegraph …clacking in the background and blabbermouth Hodges inventing ninety-nine percent of the action." DeLillo, Underworld.

Baseball 36 Audience applause. "Now the rhythmic applause starts, tentative at first, then spreading densely through the stands." DeLillo, Underworld.

Baseball 93 You had to see the Brooklyn Dodgers in order to appreciate them. "No one could explain the Dodgers who wasn’t there." DeLillo, Underworld.

Baseball 131 "You have to know the feel of a baseball in your hand." DeLillo, Underworld.