Saul Bellow Quotes
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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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I must play the instrument I've got.
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You have to fight for your life. That's the chief condition on which you hold it.
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When I didn't argue he was satisfied he had persuaded me, and was not the first to make that mistake.
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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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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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The dream of man's heart ... is that life may complete in significant pattern.
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A human soul devoid of longing was a soul deformed, deprived of its highest good, sick unto death.
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A plan relieves you of the torment of choice.
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A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
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Death is the black backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all.
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The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man's life is not a business.
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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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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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And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.
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The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.
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If I'm out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.
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I am an American – Chicago born.
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I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists.
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At moments I dislike having a face, a nose, lips, because he has them.
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Is our species crazy? Plenty of evidence.
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Art attempts to find in the universe, in matter as well as in the facts of life, what is fundamental, enduring, essential.
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It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart.
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...chaos doesn't run the whole show.