“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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“Diallo, a West African immigrant in New York, matched a description of a rapist. Four white officers questioned him, and when the unarmed Diallo started to pull out his wallet, they decided it was a gun and fired forty-one shots. The underlying neurobiology concerns “event-related potentials” (ERPs), which are stimulus-induced changes in electrical activity of the brain (as assessed by EEG—electroencephalography). Threatening faces produce a distinctive change (called the P200 component) in the ERP waveform in under two hundred milliseconds. Among white subjects, viewing someone black evokes a stronger P200 waveform than viewing someone white, regardless of whether the person is armed. Then, a few milliseconds later, a second, inhibitory waveform (the N200 component) appears, originating from the frontal cortex—“Let’s think a sec about what we’re seeing before we shoot.” Viewing a black individual evokes less of an N200 waveform than does seeing someone white. The greater the P200/N200 ratio (i.e., the greater the ratio of I’m-feeling-threatened to Hold-on-a-sec), the greater the likelihood of shooting an unarmed black individual.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, quote from Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
“This entire time I've been closing myself off from love., but it's been the solution all along. I've built walls at every turn. No more.”
― Sara Ella, quote from Unblemished
“By tapping into flowers and their elixirs, we have a method at our fingertips that helps us be our happiest, clearest, and most loving selves. With this book I invite you to catalyze your own personal Flowerevolution and create a worldwide ripple effect of positivity—transforming the world from the inside out.”
― Katie Hess, quote from Flowerevolution: Blooming into Your Full Potential with the Magic of Flowers
“The truth was a punch to the gut, and while you were falling, a knee to the face, then you could lie on the floor and bleed for a spell. Ed”
― Tanya Thompson, quote from Assuming Names: A Con Artist's Masquerade
“Sometimes happiness comes to us. But usually you have to seek it out.”
― Mark T. Sullivan, quote from Beneath a Scarlet Sky
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The SaintBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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