I am marked like a road map from head to toe with my repressions. You can travel the length and breadth of my body over superhighways of shame and inhibition and fear.
Philip RothHe is not simply looking into the mirror because he is transfixed by what he sees. Rather, the artistโs success depends as much as anything on his powers of detachment, on de-narcissizing himselfโฆ Freudโฆ studied his own dreams not because he was a โnarcissist,โ but because he was a student of dreams. And whose were at once the least and most accessible of dreams, if not his own?
Philip RothAmerican society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
Philip Roth