Quotes from The Day of the Locust

“Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“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.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“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.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“Let him ride a horse. He's a cowboy ain't he?”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“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.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“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.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“Being with her was like being backstage during an amateurish, ridiculous play.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“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.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“But whether he was happy or not it is hard to say. Probably he was neither, just as a plant is neither. He had memories to disturb him and a plant hasn't, but after the first bad night his memories were quiet.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“What a perfect escape the return to the womb was. Better by far than Religion or Art or the South Sea Islands. It was so snug and warm there, and the feeding was automatic.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“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. Tod”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“„Biću zvezda jednog dana,” izjavila je kao da ga izaziva da joj protivreči.
„Siguran sam...”
„To je moj život. To je jedina stvar na svetu koju želim.”
„Dobro je znati šta želiš. Ja sam bio knjigovođa u hotelu, ali...”
„Ako ne bude tako, izvršiću samoubistvo.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“He crossed the bridge and followed a little path that ended at a Greek temple dedicated to Eros. The god himself lay face downward in a pile of old newspapers and bottles. From”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“Tod didn't laugh at the man's rhetoric. He knew it was unimportant. What mattered were his messianic rage and the emotional response of his hearers. They sprang to their feet, shaking their fists and shouting.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

“He got out of bed in sections, like a poorly made automaton, and carried his hands into the bathroom. He turned on the cold water. When the basin was full, he plunged his hands in up to the wrists. They lay quietly on the bottom like a pair of strange aquatic animals. When they were thoroughly chilled and began to crawl about, he lifted them out and hid them in a towel. He was cold. He ran hot water into the tub and began to undress, fumbling with the buttons of his clothing as though he were undressing a stranger. He was naked before the tub was full enough to get in and he sat down on a stool to wait. He kept his enormous hands folded quietly on his belly. Although absolutely still, they seemed curbed rather than resting.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust

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“She had been stopped when Morty was killed, stopped from going forward, and all the logic went out of her life. She wanted life, as all people do, to be logical and linear, as orderly as she made the house and her kitchen and the boy's bureau drawers. She had worked so hard to be in control of a household's destiny. All her life she waited not only for Morty but for the explanation from Morty: Why? The question haunted Sabbath. Why? Why? If only someone will explain to us why, maybe we could accept it. Why did you die? Where did you go? However much you may have hated me, why don't you come back so we can continue with our linear, logical life like all the other couples who hate each other?”
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