Saul Bellow Quotes
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Great pressure is brought to bear to make us undervalue ourselves. On the other hand, civilization teaches that each of us is an inestimable prize. There are, then, these two preparations: one for life and the other for death. Therefore we value and are ashamed to value ourselves.
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In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.
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I don't like to write from a flat, cold position. You must like what you're doing very much or like the people -- either like them or hate them. You can't be indifferent.
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A man must have limits and cannot give in to the wild desires to be everything and everyone and everything to everyone.
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A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.
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People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.
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In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too
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It is a joy to be choked with thought.
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All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination.
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If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
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I must play the instrument I've got.
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And what about all the good I have in my heart - does it mean anything?
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I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.
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... an era of turmoil and ideological confusion, the principal phenomenon of the present age.
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We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.
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A plan relieves you of the torment of choice.
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De Tocqueville considered the impulse toward well-being as one of the strongest impulses of a democratic society. He can't be blamed for underestimating the destructive powers generated by this same impulse.
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The only real distinction at this dangerous moment in human history and cosmic development has nothing to do with medals and ribbons. Not to fall asleep is distinguished. Everything else is mere popcorn.
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Death deserves dignity.
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But privately when things got very bad I often looked into books to see whether I could find some helpful words, and one day I read, "The forgiveness of sins is perpetual and righteousness first is not required." This impressed me so deeply that I went around saying it to myself. But then I forgot which book it was.
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With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you've fallen into good hands - someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.
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It wasn't that he was specially ungenerous but that he put things off to give his generosity a longer and more significant route.
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Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.
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The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.