“I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.”

Sand and Foam (1926)

Source: The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

Lunatic. 6
पागल (The Lunatic)
Context: I see the blind man as the people's guide, the ascetic in his cave a deserter; those who act in the theater of lies I see as dark buffoons. Those who fail I find successful, and progress only backsliding. am I squint-eyed, Or just crazy? Friend, I'm crazy. Look at the withered tongues of shameless leaders, The dance of the whores At breaking the backbone on the people's rights. When the sparrow-headed newsprint spreads its black lies In a web of falsehood

Source: The Metamorphosis

Source: On the way she pays homage to China in “Anchee Min: 'If I had stayed in China, I would be dead'” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10116718/Anchee-Min-If-I-had-stayed-in-China-I-would-be-dead.html in The Telegraph (2013 Jul 4)

This derives from a folk proverb sometimes attributed to Clementine Paddleford, but in use as an "old proverb" as early as 1908, when Paddeford was only 10 years old.
Misattributed
Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Broken Lights Diaries 1953-54. Psalm 118