The Day of the Locust Quotes

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

“The sun is a joke.”
― Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust

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

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

“It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.”
― Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust

“Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.”
― Nathanael West, 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, The Day of the Locust

“Being with her was like being backstage during an amateurish, ridiculous play. From in front, the stupid lines and grotesque situations would have made him squirm with annoyance, but because he saw the perspiring stagehands and the wires that held up the tawdry summerhouse with its tangle of paper flowers, he accepted everything and was anxious for it to succeed.”
― Nathanael West, 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, 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, The Day of the Locust

“At the sight of their heroes and heroines, the crowd would turn demoniac. Some little gesture, either too pleasing or too offensive, would start it moving and then nothing but machine guns would stop it. Individually the purpose of its members might simply to be to get a souvenir, but collectively it would grab and rend.”
― Nathanael West, 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, 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, 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, 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, The Day of the Locust

“It was a trapped bird, but the sound it made had no anxiety in it, only sadness, impersonal and without hope.”
― Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust

“Her invitation wasn’t to pleasure, but to struggle, hard and sharp, closer to murder than love. If you threw yourself on her, it would be like throwing yourself from the parapet of a skyscraper. You would do it with a scream. You couldn’t expect to rise again. Your teeth would be driven into your skull like nails into a pine board and your back would be broken. You wouldn’t even have time to sweat or close your eyes.”
― Nathanael West, 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. Everything perfect in that hotel. No wonder the memory of those accommodations lingered in the blood and nerves of everyone. It was dark, yes, but what a warm, rich darkness. The grave wasn’t in it. No wonder one fought so desperately against being evicted when the nine months’ lease was up.”
― Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust

“He didn’t mean to be rude but at first glance this man seemed an exact model for the kind of person who comes to California to die, perfect in every detail down to fever eyes and unruly hands.”
― Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust

“Except for his hands, which belonged on a piece of monumental sculpture, and his small head, he was well proportioned. His muscles were large and round and he had a full, heavy chest. Yet there was something wrong. For all his size and shape, he looked neither strong nor fertile. He was like one of Picasso’s great sterile athletes, who brood hopelessly on pink sand, staring at veined marble waves.”
― Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust