“Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.”

— Sinclair Lewis

Letter declining the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith

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Sinclair Lewis 136

American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright 1885–1951

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