Nathanael West Quotes

• 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

  Feel Better, Tears, Benefits

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.103, New Directions Publishing

  50 Copy quote

• Art Is a Way Out. Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the débris of failure, look for newer and fresher paths. Art is just such a path. Art is distilled from suffering.

  Nathanael West

  Art, Suffering, Looks

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.4, New Directions Publishing

  16 Copy quote

• Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears.

  Nathanael West

  Tears, Benefits, Having Hope

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.103, New Directions Publishing

  16 Copy quote

• Man spends a great deal of time making order out of chaos, yet insists that the emotions be disordered. I order my emotions: I am insane.

  Nathanael West

  Men, Order, Insane

  Nathanael West (2012). “The Dream Life of Balso Snell”, p.14, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  College, Expression, Years

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.14, New Directions Publishing

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Men, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• Numbers constitute the only universal language.

  Nathanael West

  Communication, Math, Numbers

  1933 Miss Lonely hearts.

  16 Copy quote

• Every child, everywhere; in the whole world there was not one child who was not gravely, sweetly dancing.

  Nathanael West

  Children, Dancing, World

  Nathanael West (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust”, p.15, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• Feeling is of the heart and nerves and the crudeness of its expression has nothing to do with its intensity.

  Nathanael West

  Heart, Expression, Feelings

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.119, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• Like a dead man, only friction could make him warm or violence make him mobile.

  Nathanael West

  Men, Violence, Friction

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.19, New Directions Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• Let him ride a horse. He's a cowboy ain't he?

  Nathanael West

  Horse, Cowboy

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.124, New Directions Publishing

  15 Copy quote

• He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain.

  Nathanael West

  Hurt, Pain, Animal

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.39, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• Her sureness was based on the power to limit experience arbitrarily.

  Nathanael West

  Limits

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

  13 Copy quote

• He thought of how calm he was. His calm was so perfect that he could not destroy it even by being conscious of it.

  Nathanael West

  Perfect, Calm, Conscious

  Nathanael West (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust”, p.51, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• It's solitary drinking that makes drunkards.

  Nathanael West

  Drinking, Solitary, Drunkards

  Nathanael West (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust”, p.51, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• He felt as though his heart were a bomb, a complicated bomb that would result in a simple explosion, wrecking the world without rocking it.

  Nathanael West

  Heart, Simple, Rocking It

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.13, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• No dream ever entirely disappears. Somewhere it troubles some unfortunate person and some day, when that person has been sufficiently troubled, it will be reproduced on the lot.

  Nathanael West

  Dream, Trouble, Disappear

  Nathanael West (1969). “Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust”, p.132, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• But whether he was happy or not was hard to say. Probably he was neither, just as a plant is neither.

  Nathanael West

  Plant, Hard

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.89, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Laughing, Romance, Needs

  Nathanael West (1969). “Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust”, p.61, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• Crowds of people moved through the streets with a dream-like violence.

  Nathanael West

  Dream, People, Crowds

  7 Copy quote

• Prayers for the condemned man will be offered on an adding machine. Numbers constitute the only universal language.

  Nathanael West

  Prayer, Math, Men

  1933 Miss Lonely hearts.

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Zoos, Animal, Thinking

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.36, New Directions Publishing

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Dark, Moon, Sea

  Nathanael West, Jonathan Lethem (2009). “Miss Lonelyhearts: & the Day of the Locust”, p.28, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

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