Quotes by
Saul Bellow |
1914-2005 , Canadian-American writer, Nobel 1976
One of the important authors of 20th-century. Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature (1976), and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction 3 times.
His best-known works include: The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Seize the Day, Humboldt's Gift and Ravelstein.
| 44 quotes | 1,132 visits |
Quotations
| • | You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. 4 |
| • | 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. 4 |
| • | When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice. 4 |
| • | Is our species crazy? Plenty of evidence. 3 |
| • | It would not be practical for her to hate herself. Luckily, God sends a substitute, a husband. 3 |
| • | I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists. 3 |
| • | Boredom is the conviction that you can't change ... the shriek of unused capacities. 3 |
| • | Human character is smaller now, people don't have durable passions; they've replaced passions with excitement. 3 |
| • | Language is a spiritual mansion in which you live and nobody has the right to evict you. 3 |
| • | I would like to explain that I consider prayer above all an act of gratitude for existence. 3 |
| • | Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is. 3 |
| • | You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half. 3 |
| • | Don't cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don't poison everything. |
| • | The body is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure. |
| • | 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. |
| • | I’ve discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, “To hell with you.” |
| • | I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. |
| • | It's no disgrace to be a private, you know. Socrates was a plain foot soldier, a hoplite. |
| • | Conquered people tend to be witty. |
| • | I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction. |
| • | Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees. |
| • | A man must have limits and cannot give in to the wild desires to be everything and everyone and everything to everyone. |
| • | All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac. |
| • | Excuse me ... but I reject your definitions of me. |
| • | He was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it is harder to find out how he feels. |
| • | Every treasure is guarded by dragons. That’s how you can tell it’s valuable. |
| • | Facts always are sensational. |
| • | Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything. |
| • | 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. |
| • | A writer is a reader moved to emulation. |
| • | One thought–murder a day keeps the psychiatrist away. |
| • | 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. |
| • | A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. |
| • | People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned. |
| • | Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door. |
| • | A man is only as good as what he loves. |
| • | Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions. |
| • | It seems, after all that there are no nonpeculiar people. |
| • | A plan relieves you of the torment of choice. |
| • | Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone. |
| • | Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity. |
| • | Between human beings there are only two alternatives, either brotherhood or crime. |
| • | I love solitude but I prize it most when company is available. |
| • | A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him. |
