Booth Tarkington Quotes


… there are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.


Context

Alcoholism is a disease that has affected people of every occupation, every socioeconomic class, every color and nationality, and we all have seen instances so often that most people realize that anyone might be addicted to alcohol. The result is any accusation that someone is an alcoholic is plausible to most of us. As a result of this, it has become a favorite untrue slander in political attacks. Even when false it is believable as in the earlier decades of America, drinking heavily was a part of political culture and many would become addicted.


Citations

Booth Tarkington, 1869–1946, Novelist and Dramatist, Penrode

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

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Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington
  • Born: July 29, 1869
  • Died: May 19, 1946
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Novelist, Dramatist

Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921). He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead. In the 1910s and 1920s he was considered America's greatest living author. Several of his stories were adapted to film. During the first quarter of the 20th century, Tarkington, along with Meredith Nicholson, George Ade, and James Whitcomb Riley helped to create a Golden Age of literature in Indiana.