The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

A birth usually has more consequences than a death.

How smoothly one becomes, not a cheat, exactly, not really a liar, just a man who'll say anything for pay.

The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me.

That had been the trouble with him and Betsy: what with his brooding about the past and worrying about the future, there had never been any present at all.

I could get a job in an advertising agency. I’ll write copy telling people to eat more cornflakes and smoke more and more cigarettes and buy more refrigerators and automobiles, until they explode with happiness.

'Believe me, I want you to have a good time,' he said gently, 'but people who have that primarily in mind rarely accomplish it.'

I really don’t know what I was looking for when I got back from the war, but it seemed as though all I could see was a lot of bright young men in gray flannel suits rushing around New York in a frantic parade to nowhere. They seemed to me to be pursuing neither ideals nor happiness – they were pursuing a routine. For a long while I thought I was on the sidelines watching that parade, and it was quite a shock to glance down and see that I too was wearing a gray flannel suit.