Quotes: Small Town (8)

Small town     409         "Carol recognized in Washington as she had in California a transplanted and guarded Main Street; two-thirds…had come from Gopher Prairies." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     410         "Always she was to perceive in Washington (as doubtless she would have perceived in New York or London) a thick streak of Main Street." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     426         "In Gopher Prairie the only ardent new topics were Prohibition, the place in Minneapolis where you could get whiskey at thirteen dollars a quart, recipes for home-made beer, the 'high cost of living,' the presidential election, Clark’s new car and not very novel foibles of Cy Bogart …problems were exactly what they had been twenty years ago, and what they would be for twenty years to come." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     438         Mark Schorer, in the Afterword, quoting from the novel: "Under the stilly boughs and the black gauze of dusk the street was meshed in silence…was but the hum of motor tires crunching the road, the creak of a rocker on the Howlands’ porch, the slap of a hand attacking a mosquito, a heat-weary conversation starting and dying, the precise rhythm of crickets, the thud of moths against the screen—sounds that were a distilled silence…a street beyond the end of the world, beyond the boundaries of hope…no one who was interesting would come by…tediousness made tangible, a street builded of lassitude and futility." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town vs. cities     413         "Her glimpse of tasks [in Washington] involving millions of people and a score of nations reduced Main Street from bloated importance to its actual pettiness…could never again be quite so awed by the power with which she herself had endowed the Vidas and Blausers and Bogarts." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (7)

Small town     279         "As she went dragging through the prickly-hot street she reflected that a citizen of Gopher Prairie does not have jests—he has a jest…for five winters Lyman Cass had remarked, 'Fair to middlin’ chilly—get worse before it gets better'…fifty times had Sam Clark called to her, 'Where’d you steal that hat?' ” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     310         "Miles looked steadily at the three women: 'You’re too late…can’t do nothing now; Bea’s always kind of hoped that you folks would come see her…wanted to have a chance and be friends…used to sit waiting for somebody to knock…seen her sitting here, waiting…oh, you ain’t worth god-damning.'  He shut the door." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

33. Small town     327        " …the back-slapping jocosity that passes for humor here." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     327         "Gopher Prairie with its celebrated eleven miles of cement walk…I wonder how much of the cement is made out of the tombstones of John Keatses?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     333         "Tennis was well spoken of in Gopher Prairie and almost never played." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (6)

 Small town     257         [Small American town]: "It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to be respectable …contentment…the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking…a negation canonized as the one positive virtue…the prohibition of happiness…dullness made God." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     258         [American small town]: "A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking chairs…listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     259         "The cloud of serene ignorance submerges them in unhappiness and futility." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     261         "…Carol saw the fact that the prairie towns no more exist to serve the farmers who are their reason of existence than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten on the farmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     275         "The incredible dullness of it all…they don’t know what they miss…anybody can endure anything; look at men in mines and in prisons." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (5)

Small town     204          "Miss Stowbody expressed the fundamental principle of the American drama: the only way to be artistic is to present Shakespeare." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     223         "How bravely and generously it [Gopher Prairie] did its work, forwarding the bread of the world, feeding and healing the farmers." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     217         "…two traditions of the American small town…first tradition…is that the American village remains the one sure abode of friendship, honesty, and clean sweet marriageable girls." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     257         "The other tradition [of the American small town] is that [among] the significant features of all villages are…shrewd comic old men who are known as 'hicks' and who ejaculate 'Wall I swan.' " Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     257         " …unread sets of Mark Twain…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (4)

 Small town     153         "The 'village virus': …more dangerous than the cancer that will certainly get me at fifty unless I stop this smoking…the germ which…infects ambitious people who stay too long in the provinces… epidemic among lawyers and doctors and ministers and college-bred merchants—all these people who have had a glimpse of the world that thinks and laughs, but have returned to their swamp." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     155        "I decided to leave here, stern resolution, grasp the world…found that the Village Virus had me…didn’t want to face new streets and younger men—real competition." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     166         "You’re so damned superior, and think the city is such a hell of a lot finer place, and you want us to do what you want, all the time…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     184         "Mrs. Erdstrom begged her to sit in the parlor, where there was a phonograph and an oak and leather davenport, the prairie farmer’s proofs of social progress." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     202         "…the jocose insults which are the wit of Main Street." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (3)

 Small town     143         "How had she fallen into the folly of trying to plant anything whatever in a wall so smooth and sun-glazed, and so satisfying to the happy sleepers within?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     151         "Small-town philosophy: People who make more than ten thousand a year or less than eight hundred are wicked.: Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     151        "Small-town philosophy: Virgins are not so virginal as they used to be." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     151         "Small-town philosophy: There would be no more trouble or discontent in the world if everybody worked as hard as Pa did when he cleared our first farm." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     153         "I wonder if the small town is not, with some lovely exceptions, a social appendix…some day these dull market-towns may be as obsolete as monasteries." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (2)

Small town       105         "In her innocence she had not known that the whole town could discuss even her garments, her body; she felt that she was being dragged naked down Main Street." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town       110         "She reverted to her resolution to change the town—awaken it, prod it, 'reform' it; what if they were wolves instead of lambs? They’d eat her all the sooner if she was meek…fight or be eaten…easier to change the town completely than to conciliate it." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town       115         "Miles Bjornstam, half Yank and half Swede: Usually known as ‘that damn lazy big-mouthed calamity-howler that ain’t satisfied with the way we run things.’ " Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town       121        "She read Kipling, with a great deal of emphasis: There’s a REGIMENT a-COMING down the GRAND Trunk ROAD…tapped his foot to the rhythm, he looked normal and reassured; but when he complimented her, ‘that was fine; I don’t know but what you can elocute just as good as Ella Stowbody,’ she banged the book and suggested that they were not too late for the nine o’clock show at the movies." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town     135         "And as for a lecture hall—haven’t we got the churches?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.