“...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“Numbers constitute the only universal language.”
Nathanael West“We must take the long view—every defeat is a victory in a war of attrition.”
Nathanael West“...let us consider the holes in our own bodies and into what these congenital wounds open. Under the skin of man is a wondrous jungle where veins like lush tropical growths hang along over-ripe organs and weed-like entrails writhe in squirming tangles of red and yellow. In this jungle, flitting from rock-gray lungs to golden intestines, from liver to lights and back to liver again, lives a bird called the soul.”
Nathanael West“It was very sad under the trees. Although spring was well advanced, in the deep shade there was nothing but death-rotten leaves, gray and white fungi, and over everything a funeral hush.”
Nathanael West“It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that need are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.”
Nathanael West“Art Is One if Life's Richest Offerings. For those who have not the talent to create, there is appreciation.”
Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts“You dedicate your life to the pursuit of pleasure. No over-indulgence, mind you, but knowing that your body is apleasure machine, you treat it carefully in order to get the most out of it.”
Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts“It's solitary drinking that makes drunkards.”
Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts“Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on eath. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will percieve the divine mystery in things. Once you percieve it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”
Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts“Her sureness was based on the power to limit experience arbitrarily.”
Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts