Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize. He became a member of the National Institute in 1935.
Sinclair Lewis (1885 - 1951)
Source: Letter declining the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Arrowsmith, 1926
A sensational event was changing from the brown suit to the gray the contents of his pockets. He was earnest about these objects. They were of eternal importance, like baseball or the Republican Party.
Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead. Address in Stockholm on receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, December 12, 1930.
Sinclair Lewis (1885 - 1951)
Source: Title of address: The American Fear of Literature.
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