Philip Roth Quotes

Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.

Philip Roth

• Life
• Writing
• Die

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Quotes to Explore

• I have cravings all the time, even when I'm not pregnant.

  

  Laila Ali
  • Time
  • Pregnant
  • Even

• I breeze through Twitter - I look at the mentions, the pictures, the videos.

  

  Adam Lambert
  • Look
  • Pictures
  • Twitter

• In the investment business, you must expect to be wrong.

  

  Barry Ritholtz
  • Business
  • You
  • Investment

• Bigotry toward any faith community cannot have any place in civilized society anywhere in the world.

  

  Feisal Abdul Rauf
  • World
  • Society
  • Faith

• There's nowhere like Detroit; it's a modern necropolis: all these art deco masterpieces crumbling away.

  

  Malik Bendjelloul
  • Art
  • Like
  • Modern

• I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.

  

  Pablo Picasso
  • Think
  • Imagination
  • Paint

• Most Americans probably have no idea how hostile anti-abortion sidewalk counseling outside clinics can be. There's a reason pro-choicers volunteer to escort patients as they make their way past angry crowds to the clinic door.

  

  Katha Pollitt
  • Past
  • Door
  • Angry

• Both my parents are immigrants. I've seen different struggles they've had. There's a reason you don't see me using accents. I don't do impressions of my folks. When I'm doing a crappy impression of my folks, and you're laughing, I'm thinking, 'When my parents talk to people, when they walk away do people do impressions of them? Do they laugh?'

  

  Hari Kondabolu
  • People
  • Different
  • Thinking

• Back in the 1960s, I got a superb education for very little money. The bill for my first year at Harpur College in New York was a few hundred dollars.

  

  Camille Paglia
  • Money
  • Education
  • College

• Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.

  

  Barbara Deming
  • Punishment
  • Only
  • Heal

• The truth, it is said, is rarely pure or simple, yet genetics can at times seem seductively transparent.

  

  Iain McGilchrist
  • Truth
  • Simple
  • Said

• I am that guy who will say things that people seem to think is a little edgy, a little racy.

  

  Patrice O'Neal
  • People
  • Think
  • Guy

• I've turned down twentysomething million dollars for movies.

  

  Vin Diesel
  • Movies
  • Down
  • Million

• It was sort of that in-between area when people don't talk about their personal lives. That's the kind of life I think Kerry would be living now if it weren't for the Lopez character sort of outing her.

  

  Laura Innes
  • People
  • Life
  • Character

• Serial killers are everywhere! Well, perhaps not in our neighborhood, but on our television screens, at the movie theatres, and in rows and rows of books at our local Borders or Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

  

  Pat Brown
  • Movie
  • Books
  • Television

• It is one thing to tell the citizens of some faraway country to go to hell, but it is another to do the same to your own citizens, who are supposedly your ultimate sovereigns.

  

  Ha-Joon Chang
  • Country
  • Hell
  • Go

• Love is so unconditional; love liberates; love is the reason why I do what I do, and so I think it is the greatest gift we have.

  

  BeBe Winans
  • Love
  • For Her
  • Unconditional

• There can be a lot of mind games going on between the players. When you're about to serve, people will try to throw you off your rhythm by taking a walk. If you're tired, you can't show that at all to an opponent.

  

  Rajiv Ouseph
  • People
  • Mind
  • Tired

• I wasn't the kind of kid like Spielberg or Lucas who knew to go to film school. I didn't know at 12 what I was going to do; it took me until I was about 23. I studied journalism in college, but after school, I got a job in public television and I never worked as a journalist for one moment.

  

  Nancy Meyers
  • School
  • Job
  • College

• Ultimately, it's your talent that counts.

  

  Armaan Malik

• I love and always have loved policy issues and trying to have an impact on the issues that are out there. I cherish my years in government. I have loved my participation at CNN, at Current; writing; teaching. Where I will go next, I will have to sort out.

  

  Eliot Spitzer
  • Writing
  • Trying
  • Issues

• It's different playing in a studio than it is playing live, of course.

  

  Levon Helm
  • Different
  • Live

• I'm generally considered a conservative in my predictions for disease.

  

  Anthony Fauci

• Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.

  

  Philip Roth
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Die