Saul Bellow Quotes
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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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You have to fight for your life. That's the chief condition on which you hold it.
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The two real problems in life are boredom and death.
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The terms which, in his inmost heart, each man knows. As I know mine. As all know. For that is the truth of it — that we all know, God, that we know, that we know, we know, we know.
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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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A plan relieves you of the torment of choice.
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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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The dream of man's heart ... is that life may complete in significant pattern.
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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 great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
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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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If I'm out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.
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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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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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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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I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists.
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Death is the black backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all.
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...chaos doesn't run the whole show.
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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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You have one of two choices. Either you can panic and start making frantic attempts to reform under the glare of these awful critical eyes, or you can just say, "The hell with you! I know what I'm doing. If you don't yet, it's because you haven't given me an attentive reading.
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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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At moments I dislike having a face, a nose, lips, because he has them.