Saul Bellow Quotes
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But there are things you can't consult anybody about.
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Strict seriousness was far more dangerous than any joke.
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Facts always are sensational.
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There is much to be said for exotic marriages. If your husband is a bore, it takes years longer to discover.
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In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn't tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.
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All human accomplishment has this same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination! It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!
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Boredom is the conviction that you can't change ... the shriek of unused capacities.
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It is sometimes necessary to repeat what all know. All mapmakers should place the Mississippi in the same location and avoid originality.
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I have, perhaps, a slave-like constitution which is too easily restrained by bonds; it then becomes rebellious and bursts out in a comic revolution.
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I see that I've become a really bad correspondent. It's not that I don't think of you. You come into my thoughts often. But when you do it appears to me that I owe you a particularly grand letter. And so you end in the "warehouse of good intentions": "Can't do it now." "Then put it on hold." This is one's strategy for coping with old age, and with death--because one can't die with so many obligations in storage. Our clever species, so fertile and resourceful in denying its weaknesses.
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It's no disgrace to be a private, you know. Socrates was a plain foot soldier, a hoplite.
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Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can't open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated.
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I am more stupid about some things than others; not equally stupid in all directions; I am not a well-rounded person.
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... a fellow can't predict what he will pick up in the form of influence.
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A writer is in the broadest sense a spokesman of his community. Through him that community comes to know its heart. Without such knowledge, how long can it survive?
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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.
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One must bear in mind the odd angle or slant that the rays of love have to take in order to reach a heart like mine.
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Is our species crazy? Plenty of evidence.
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The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.
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You have, like the external world, your own phenomena inside.
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I've never turned over a fig leaf yet that didn't have a price tag on the other side.
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The two real problems in life are boredom and death.
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Hapiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.
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Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest, ehrlich. Don't have a loud mouth. The more you love people the more they'll mix you up. A child loves, a person respects. Respect is better than love.