“He had learned how to assemble Jewish texts, Greek philosophy, and Middle-Western evangelistic anecdotes into a sermon. And he had learned that poverty was blessed, but that bankers make the best deacons.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“And though he had almost flunked in Greek, his thesis on 'Sixteen Ways of Paying a Church Debt' had won the ten-dollar prize in Practical Theology.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“Well, he'd get help from the Bible. It was all inspired, every word, no matter what scoffers like Jim said. He'd take the first text he turned to and talk on that.
He opened on: 'Now THEREFORE, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which ARE beyond the river, be ye far from thence,' an injunction spirited but not at present helpful.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“And when Elmer was about to slip out to the kitchen with her to make lemonade, Benham held him by demanding, 'What do you think of John Wesley's doctrine of perfection?'
'Oh, it's absolutely sound and proven,' admitted Elmer, wondering what the devil Mr. Wesley's doctrine of perfection might be.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“The Reverend Elmer Gantry was reading an illustrated pink periodical devoted to prize fighters and chorus girls in his room at Elizabeth J. Schmutz Hall late of an afternoon when two large men walked in without knocking.
"Why, good evening, Brother Bains—Brother Naylor! This is a pleasant surprise. I was, uh— Did you ever see this horrible rag? About actoresses. An invention of the devil himself. I was thinking of denouncing it next Sunday. I hope you never read it—won't you sit down, gentlemen?—take this chair— I hope you never read it, Brother Floyd, because the footsteps of—”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“lead an almost irritatingly pure life, but who had no”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“It was not an esthetic room. Though Frank Shallard might have come to admire pictures, great music, civilized furniture, he had been trained to regard them as worldly, and to content himself with art which 'presented a message,' to regard 'Les Miserables' as superior because the bishop was a kind man, and 'The Scarlet Letter' as a poor book because the heroine was sinful and the author didn't mind.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“Eddie Fislinger's church was an octagonal affair, with the pulpit in one angle, an arrangement which produced a fascinating, rather dizzy effect, reminiscent of the doctrine of predestination.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“Street, and she was able to give Elmer the three hundred”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“Elmer Gantry never knew who set him thirty dimes, wrapped in a tract about holiness, nor why. But he found the sentiments in the tract useful in his sermon, and the thirty dimes he spent for lovely photographs of burlesque ladies.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
“Elmer Gantry was drunk. He was eloquently drunk, lovingly and pugnaciously drunk.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Elmer Gantry
Sinclair Lewis
Born place: in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, The United States
Born date February 7, 1885
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“if there's no change
...
there'd be no butterflies”
― Stephenie Meyer, quote from The Twilight Saga Complete Collection
“Though you thrust a knife at my eyes, I will not flinch.”
― quote from Luck in the Shadows
“My friends, I am not saying I know for a fact that there is no God. All I am saying is that if there is a divine force behind the universe, it is laughing hysterically at the religions we’ve created in an attempt to define it.”
― Dan Brown, quote from Origin
“But on this particular morning, weary of books and birdsong and country peace, Edward took his rickety childhood bike from the shed, raised the saddle, pumped up the tired and set off with no particular plan. He had a pound note and two half crowns in his pocket and all he wanted was forward movement.”
― Ian McEwan, quote from On Chesil Beach
“Sometimes good people have to do bad things. It’s nothing personal. It’s just life,”
― Belle Aurora, quote from Raw
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