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Humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul.
Saul Bellow -
Because I have become such a solitary, and not in the Aristotelian sense: not a beast, not a god. Rather, a loner troubled by longings, incapable of finding a suitable language and despairing at the impossibility of composing messages in a playable key--as if I no longer understood the codes used by the estimable people who wanted to hear from me and would have so much to reply if only the impediments were taken away.
Saul Bellow -
O Lord! he concluded, forgive all these trespasses. Lead me not into Penn Station.
Saul Bellow -
Art -- the fresh feeling, new harmony, the transforming magic which by means of myth brings back the scattered distracted soul from its modern chaos -- art, not politics, is the remedy.
Saul Bellow -
...is the carbon molecule lined with thought?
Saul Bellow -
I have begun in old age to understand...that we seldom if ever realize how generous we are to ourselves, and just how stingy with others.
Saul Bellow
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...I am much better now at ambiguities.
Saul Bellow -
Only self-hatred could lead him to ruin himself because his heart was "broken.
Saul Bellow -
She was what we used to call a suicide blonde - dyed by her own hand.
Saul Bellow -
You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
Saul Bellow -
An exchange occurs between man and woman. Love and thought complete each other in the human pair, and something like an exchange of souls takes place, according to the divine plan.
Saul Bellow -
To tell the truth I never had it so good. But I lacked the strength of character to bear such joy.
Saul Bellow
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The late philosopher Morris R. Cohen of CCNY was asked by a student in the metaphysics course, Professor Cohen, how do I know that I exist? The keen old prof replied, And who is asking?
Saul Bellow -
I want to tell you, don't marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it's adultery.
Saul Bellow -
Retirement is an illusion. Not a reward but a mantrap. The bankrupt underside of success. A shortcut to death. Golf courses are too much like cemeteries.
Saul Bellow -
I am deeply moved when I write. I get turned on by it. I've never used any drugs for stimulation. I don't use words loosely. When I'm working and the right word comes, there is an answering resonance within me. There is also a hardness of intention that goes with it. There is no idleness in it.
Saul Bellow -
The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.
Saul Bellow -
Erotic practices have become diversified. Sex used to be a single-crop farming, like cotton or wheat; now people raise all kinds of things.
Saul Bellow
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One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance and this fantasy (?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment.
Saul Bellow -
I seem to have the blind self-acceptance of the eccentric who can't conceive that his eccentricities are not clearly understood.
Saul Bellow -
I am moneys medium. It passes through me- taxes, insurance, mortgage, child support, rent, legal fees. All this dignified blundering costs plenty.
Saul Bellow -
The sand swallows burst out of their scupper holes in the bluffs and out over the transparent drown of the water, back again to the white, to the brown, to the black, from moving to stock-still sand waves and water-worked woods and roots that hugged and twisted in the sun.
Saul Bellow