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Authors:

Nathanael West quotes

American Writer October 17, 1903 – December 22, 1940

Nathanael West quotes in russian
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Quotes

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... Nathanael West
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
You once said to me that I talk like a man in a book. I not only talk, but think and feel like one. I have spent my life in books; literature has deeply dyed my brain its own colour. This literary colouring is a protective one--like the brown of the rabbit or the checks of the quail--making it impossible for me to tell where literature ends and I begin. Nathanael West
Art Is a Way Out. Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the dbris of failure, look for newer and fresher paths. Art is just such a path. Art is distilled from suffering. Nathanael West
It seems to me that someone must surely take the hint and write the life of Miss McGeeney, the woman who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of Boswell. Nathanael West
Nathanael West quote: "But whether he was happy or not was hard to say. Probably he..."
But whether he was happy or not was hard to say. Probably he was neither, just as a plant is neither. Nathanael West
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
At college, and perhaps for a year afterwards, they had believed in literature, had believed in Beauty and in personal expression as an absolute end. When they lost this belief, they lost everything. Nathanael West
He Sat in the window thinking. Man has a tropism for order. Keys in one pocket, change in the other. Mandolins are tuned G D A E. The physical world has a tropism for disorder, entropy. Man against Nature...the battle of the centuries. Keys yearn to mix with change. Mandolins strive to get out of tune. Every order has within it the germ of destruction. All order is doomed, yet the battle is worth wile. Nathanael West
Faye burst into the room. She ignored Homer and went straight to the couch. Now what in hell's the matter?" she exploded. Darling daughter," he said. "I have been badly taken, and this gentleman has been kind enough to let me rest for a moment."He had a fit or something," Homer said. She whirled around on him so suddenly that he was startled. How do you do?" she said, holding her hand forward and high up. He shook it gingerly. Charmed," she said, when he mumbled something. She spun around... Nathanael West
...all these things were part of the business of dreams. He had learned not to laugh at the advertisements offering to teach writing, cartooning, engineering, to add inches to the biceps and to develop the bust Nathanael West
Nathanael West quote: "He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded..."
He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain. Nathanael West
He smoked a cigarette, standing in the dark and listening to her undress. She made sea sounds; something flapped like a sail; there was the creak of ropes; then he heard the wave-against-a-wharf smack of rubber on flesh. Her call for him to hurry was a sea-moan, and when he lay beside her, she heaved, tidal, moon-driven. Nathanael West
Nathanael West quote: "The way to be gay is to make other people gay," Miss..."
The way to be gay is to make other people gay," Miss Lonelyhearts said. "Sleep with me and I'll be one gay dog. Nathanael West
Betty took him for a walk in the zoo and he was amused by her evident belief in the curative power of animals. She seemed to think that it must steady him to look at a buffalo. Nathanael West

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