You don't want to repeat yourself for one. You don't want to fall into the clichรฉs for another. And you don't want to be licentious really. You want to be descriptive, if you can be. And you're not setting out to arouse anybody.
Philip RothActually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them--at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them.
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 RothI think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.
Philip Roth