'Miss Lonelyhearts' Quotes

Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts can seem to be desperately depressing, with its failed religiosity, castration and frustration--set against a backdrop of the Great Depression. The American Dream is an illusion. What, then, is left for the book to be positive about? Take a look at these quotes to learn more about the novel.

• "When they lost this belief, they lost everything. Money and fame meant nothing to them. They were not worldly men."
  -Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts
  
  
• "He crushed its head with a stone and left the carcass to the flies that swarmed around the bloody flowers."
  -Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts
  
  
• "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, Miss Lonelyhearts
  
  
• "And they have done their work hysterically, desperately, almost as if they knew that the stones would someday break them."
  -Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts