By accessing or using this site you accept and agree to our Terms and Conditions
We run an ad-free website, help us keep going, Support Us!
The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears.”
“Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they’ve been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing.”
“Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears. When they finish, they feel better. But to those without hope, whose anguish is basic and permanent, no good comes from crying. Nothing changes for them. They usually know this, but still can’t help crying.”
“The sun is a joke.”
“Let him ride a horse. He's a cowboy ain't he?”
“The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies.”
“Being with her was like being backstage during an amateurish, ridiculous play.”
“I'm going to be a star some day," she announced as though daring him to contradict her. "I'm sure you..." "It's my life. It's the only thing in the whole world that I want." "It's good to know what you want. I used to be a bookkeeper in a hotel, but..." "If I'm not, I'll commit suicide.”
“She wasn’t hard-boiled. It was just that she put love on a special plane, where a man without money or looks couldn’t move.”
“It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.”
Except where otherwise noted, all rights reserved to the author(s) of this book (mentioned above). The content of this page serves as promotional material only. If you enjoyed these quotes, you can support the author(s) by acquiring the full book from Amazon.
Book Keywords:
gold-digger, pretentious, cowboy, self-aggrandizement, bad-love, hope, hard-boiled-woman, phony, fake