Quotes from Arrowsmith

“He rarely left his small brown weedy house except to return to his laboratory, and few students outside of his classes had ever identified him, but every one had heard of his tall, lean, dark aloofness. A thousand fables fluttered about him.”

Vivid, compact images like 'small brown weedy house' and 'dark aloofness' show the novel's precise, slightly ironic descriptive style.

“Every night when Fatty retired he had to remove from his bed a collection of objects which thoughtful house-mates had stuffed between the sheets--soap, alarm clocks, fish. He was the perfect person to whom to sell useless things.”

The deadpan list and the wry closing sentence show Lewis's comic timing and satirical edge.

“Clif had been elected class president, for the year, because he was so full of greetings. He never met a classmate in the hall of Main Medical without shouting, “How’s your vermiform appendix functioning this morning?” or “I bid thee a lofty greeting, old pediculosis.””

Mock-heroic dialogue and an escalating joke show the book's satirical humor about student life.

“The total number of his papers, in a brisk scientific realm where really clever people published five times a year, was not more than twenty-five in thirty years. They were all exquisitely finished, all easily reduplicated and checked by the doubtfullest critics.”

Measured, balanced clauses with repeated 'all' build a precise, admiring portrait of a scientist's integrity.

“It was true; he was half-educated. He was supposed to be a college graduate but he knew nothing of economics, nothing of history, nothing of music or painting.”

Plain, cumulative 'nothing of' phrasing gives the protagonist's self-doubt a blunt, direct rhythm.

“It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.”

A wry generalization with a sharp twist in the final clause shows the narrator's aphoristic voice.

“It is true that a busy health-department bacteriologist has no right to waste the public time in being curious, but the irresponsible sniffing beagle in Martin drove out the faithful routineer.”

The animal metaphor and the contrast between 'beagle' and 'routineer' show Lewis's playful, pointed imagery.

“As for the rest it was only a burring; the sound of seven million people hungry for sleep or love or money.”

The tricolon 'sleep or love or money' gives a compact, memorable image of the city's restless noise.

“He perceived the horror of the shrieking bawdy thing called Success, with its demand that he give up quiet work and parade forth to be pawed by every blind devotee and mud-spattered by every blind enemy.”

Vivid personification and the parallel 'blind devotee' and 'blind enemy' show the narrator's sharp moral satire.

“They borrowed cigarettes from each other; they went out at the most improbable hours to have flap-jacks and coffee at an all-night lunch; and together they handled test-tubes charged with death.”

Parallel clauses build to an ominous final image, contrasting ordinary student habits with deadly work.

“No one liked to shake hands with his oldest friend; every one fled from every one else, though the rats loyally stayed with them; and through the island galloped the Panic, which is more murderous than its brother, the Plague.”

Vivid personification of the Panic and the wry comparison to the Plague show the book's dark, ironic imagery.