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61 " If there are no permanent standards, there is no criticism possible. "
― John Dos Passos
62 " We work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work. "
63 " If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works, with all the misconceptions, the omissions, the failures that any finished work of art implies. "
64 " I never see the dawn that I don't say to myself perhaps. "
65 " They have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the newspapereditors the old judges the small men with reputations the collegepresidents the wardheelers (listen businessmen collegepresidents judges America will not forget her betrayers) they hire the men with guns the uniforms the policecars the patrolwagons all right you have won you will kill the brave men our friends tonight (author's punctuation) "
― John Dos Passos , The Big Money (U.S.A., #3)
66 " If there is a special Hades for writers is would be in the forced contemplation of their own works. "
67 " In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable. "
68 " What's the use of a lague of nations if it's to be dominated by Great Britain and her colonies?" said Mr. Rasmussen sourly. "But don't you think any kind of a league's better than nothing?" said Eveline. "It's not the name you give things, it's who's getting theirs underneath that counts," said Robbins."That's a very cynical remark," said the California woman. "This isn't any time to be cynical.""This is a time," said Robbins, "when if we weren't cynical we'd shoot ourselves. "
― John Dos Passos , 1919 (U.S.A., #2)
69 " I read and keep silent. I am one of the silent watchers. I know that every sentence, every word, every picayune punctuation that appears in the public press is perused and revised and deleted in the interests of advertisers and bondholders. The fountain of national life is poisoned at the source. "
― John Dos Passos , Manhattan Transfer
70 " I wonder if any of you have ever noticed that it is sometimes those who find most pleasure and amusement in their fellow man, and have most hope in his goodness, who get the reputation of being his most carping critics. Maybe it is that the satirist is so full of the possibilities of humankind in general, that he tends to draw a dark and garish picture when he tries to depict people as they are at any particular moment. The satirist is usually a pretty unpopular fellow. The only time he attains even fleeting popularity is when his works can be used by some political faction as a stick to beat out the brains of their opponents. Satirical writing is by definition unpopular writing. Its aim is to prod people into thinking. Thinking hurts.(John Dos Passos, 1957, from the speech he delivered upon accepting the Gold Medal for Eminence in Fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters) "
71 " He pushed up the window and leaned out. An L train was rumbling past the end of the street. A whiff of coal smoke stung his nostrils. He hung out of the window a long while looking up and down the street. The world’s second metropolis. In the brick houses and the dingy lamplight and the voices of a group of boys kidding and quarreling on the steps of a house opposite, in the regular firm tread of a policeman, he felt a marching like soldiers, like a sidewheeler going up the Hudson under the Palisades, like an election parade, through long streets towards something tall white full of colonnades and stately. Metropolis. "
72 " You’ll make twentyfive percent on your money by tomorrow noon. . . . Then if you want to hold you can on a gamble, but if you sell three quarters and hold the rest two or three days on a chance you’re safe as . . . as the Rock of Gibraltar.” “I know Viler, it certainly sounds good. . . . ” “Hell man you dont want to be in this damned office all your life, do you? Think of your little girl.” “I am, that’s the trouble. "
73 " But none of em seem to realize that these things aren’t always a man’s own fault. It’s luck that’s all it is, "
74 " But what can you do with success when you get it? You cant eat it or drink it. Of course I understand that people who havent enough money to feed their faces and all that should scurry round and get it. But success . . .” “The trouble with me is I cant decide what I want most, so my motion is circular, helpless and confoundedly discouraging.” “Oh but God decided that for you. You know all the time, but you wont admit it to yourself.” “I imagine what I want most is to get out of this town, preferably first setting off a bomb under the Times Building. "
75 " Bud edged up next to a young man in a butcher’s apron who had a baseball cap on backwards. "
76 " Never mind dear. . . . It would have been too rich anyway. . . . You eat that and I’ll let you run out after dinner and buy some candy.” “Oh goody.” “But dont eat the icecream too fast or you’ll have collywobbles. "
77 " There’s a rattle of chains and a clatter from the donkeyengine where a tall man in blue overalls stands at a lever in the middle of a cloud of steam that wraps round your face like a wet towel. "
78 " Everything published goes down the same chute out of the overbright glare of publicity into oblivion. "
79 " Weißt du, Jimmy, ich glaube, es wird ganz lustig sein, ein Weilchen in einer Redaktion zu sitzen.""Ich fände es schon sehr lustig, wenn ich _irgendwo_ sitzen dürfte... Na ja, da bleibe ich eben zu Haus und passe auf das Baby auf.""Sei nicht so verbittert, Jimmy, es ist ja nur vorübergehend.""Das ganze Leben ist nur vorübergehend." (S. 250) "
80 " If any man has a ghostBourne has a ghosta tiny twisted unscared ghost in a black cloak hopping along the grimy old brick and brownstone streets still left in downtown New York,crying out in a shrill soundless giggle:War is the health of the State. "