People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.
Saul BellowI would like to explain that I consider prayer above all an act of gratitude for existence.
Saul BellowA great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul BellowThe challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up. The danger is that you may emerge from the process as a not-entirely-human creature. (Referenced in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young)
Saul BellowI blame myself for not often enough seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Somewhere in his journals, Dostoyevky remarks that a writer can begin anywhere, at the most commonplace thing, scratch around in it long enough, pry and dig away long enough, and lo!, soon he will hit upon the marvelous.
Saul Bellow