Sinclair Lewis

“ But- Oh, it isn't just feeling ashamed over being a food. It's that- Won't ever see her again. Not once. Way I saw her through the window, at the hotel, in the blue silky dress - that funny long line of buttons, and her throat. Never have dinner - lunch - with her by the road -"
⁠In the reaction of anger he demanded of Vere de Vere, "What the deuce do I care? If she's chump enough to chase away a crack garage man that's gone batty and wants to work for nothing, let her go on and hit some crook garage and get stuck for an entire overhauling. What do I care? ”

“ But now, with a mental apology to that propagandist of lowbrowism, the absent Mac, he chose the films in which the leading men wore evening clothes, and no one ever did anything without being assisted by a "man." Aside from the pictures Milt's best tutors were traveling men. Though he measured every cent, and for his campfire dinners bought modest chuck steaks, he had at least one meal a day at a hotel, to watch the traveling men.
⁠To Claire, traveling men were merely commercial persons in hard-boiled suits. ”

“ Milt had to do some quick lying. During that interview the cement floor felt very hard under his fidgeting feet, and he thought he heard the garage man in the office telephoning, "Don't think he knows Smith at all. I got a hunch he's that auto thief that was through here last summer."
⁠When Claire did not stop in the first town she reached after twilight, but drove on by dark, he had to do some perilous galloping to catch up. The lights of a Teal are excellent for adornment, but they have no relation to illumination. They are dependent upon a magneto which is dependent only upon faith. ”

“ Like a small boy in love with the teacher. And I thought I was so wise! Cussed out Mac - blamed Mac - no, damn all the fine words - cussed out Mac for being the village rumhound. Boozing is twice as sensible as me. See a girl, nice dress - start for Seattle! Two thousand miles away! Of course she bawled me out. She was dead right. Boob! Yahoo! Goat!"
⁠He caught up with Vere de Vere, rubbed her fur against his cheek while he mourned, "Oh, puss, you got to be nice to me. I thought I'd do big things. And then the alarm clock went off. I'm back in Schoenstrom. ”

“ Gustily intoning to Vere de Vere, who was the perfect audience, inasmuch as she never had anything to say but "Mrwr," and didn't mind being interrupted in that, he clamored, "The prairies are the sea. ”

“ But every page suggested Claire, and he tucked the book away.
⁠In Vachel Lindsay's Congo, in a poem called "The Santa Fe Trail," he found his own modern pilgrimage from another point of view. Here was the poet, disturbed by the honking hustle of passing cars. But Milt belonged to the honking and the hustle, and it was not the soul of the grass that he read in the poem, but his own sun-flickering flight:
Swiftly the brazen car comes on. ”

“ Except that she thinks I'm such a pest that I dassn't let her know I'm in the same state, I sure am one successful lover. As a Prince Charming I win the Vanderbilt Cup. I'm going ahead backwards so fast I'll probably drop off into the Atlantic over the next hill! ”