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The real villains of the piece are the clean, kind, industrious Family Men who use every known brand of trickery and cruelty to insure the prosperity of their cubs. The worst thing about these fellows is that they're so good and, in their work at least, so intelligent. You can't hate them properly, and yet their standardized minds are the enemy.

— Sinclair Lewis Babbitt (1922)

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More quotes by Sinclair Lewis

Slow yellow river flowing, willows that gesture in tepid August airs, and four children playing at greatness, as, doubtless, great men themselves must play.

Ann Vickers (1933)

It is not what he feels and aspires that moves him primarily; it is what the folks about him will think of him.

describing the protagonist of Babbitt (1922)

Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.

Gideon Planish (1943)

Is it possible that nobody has ever known—that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won't be for another thousand years?

The God-Seeker (1949)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Sinclair Lewis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.