How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"And now Myra is going to get pathetic on me because we don't train with this millionaire outfit. Oh, Lord, sometimes I'd like to quit the whole game." (2.2.45)
Sometimes, Babbitt blames his wife Myra for the fact that he's not as high in the social pecking order as he'd like to be. As we quickly find out from the book, though, this insecurity is Babbitt's issue, not Myra's. Babbitt likes to find relief in the fantasy of going out to live in the woods. But he never actually follows through on it.
Quote #2
He serenely believed that the one purpose of the real-estate business was to make money for George F. Babbitt. (4.4.2)
In Babbitt's mind, making money is a key aspect of becoming happy—at least at the beginning of this book. That all changes, though, as he begins to suspect that money won't bring him any fulfillment at all.
Quote #3
"Lord, if the Old Folks—they live in one of these hick towns up-state and they simply can't get onto the way a city fellow's mind works, and then, of course, they're Jews, and they'd lie right down and die if they knew Sid had anted up a hundred and twenty-six bones." (5.3.12)
Whenever you have discrimination about people's social class, racism usually isn't far behind. In this case, a guy named Sid Finklestein complains about how angry his Jewish parents would be at him if they knew how much money he spent on things that he didn't need. In his mind, though, these people are living in the stone age and aren't able to appreciate the finer things in life.