Saul Bellow Quotes

The late philosopher Morris R. Cohen of CCNY was asked by a student in the metaphysics course, Professor Cohen, how do I know that I exist? The keen old prof replied, And who is asking?

The more realistic you are the more you threaten the grounds of your own art.

I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture.

And I said to myself that unless you conceive Death to be a violent guerrilla and kidnaper who snatches those you love, and if you are not cowardly and cannot submit to such terrorism as civilized people now do in every department of life, you must pursue and inquire and explore every possibility and seek everywhere and try everything.

All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination.

A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth." But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.

The hour that burst the spirit's sleep.

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.

If I had a child of school age, I would send him to one of the Waldorf Schools.

It's not up to me ... to make the world consistent.

Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.

You have, like the external world, your own phenomena inside.

I am more stupid about some things than others; not equally stupid in all directions; I am not a well-rounded person.

I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.

But a man's character is his fate... and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.

What Homo sapien imagines, he may slowly convert himself to.

But there are things you can't consult anybody about.

Great pressure is brought to bear to make us undervalue ourselves. On the other hand, civilization teaches that each of us is an inestimable prize. There are, then, these two preparations: one for life and the other for death. Therefore we value and are ashamed to value ourselves.

Hapiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.

A writer is in the broadest sense a spokesman of his community. Through him that community comes to know its heart. Without such knowledge, how long can it survive?

Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it - they should, because they put it all in beforehand.

It is wrong to turn a man (a subject) into a thing (an object). By means of spiritual dialogue, the I-It relationship becomes an I-Thou relationship. God comes and goes in man's soul. And men come and go in each other's souls. Sometimes they come and go in each other's beds, too.

My face too blind, my mind too limited, my instincts too narrow. But this intensity, doesn't it mean anything?

Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.

A person either creates or destroys. There is no neutrality.

And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.

In every community there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don't mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably the most dangerous people seek the power. While in the parlors of indignation the right-thinking citizen brings his heart to a boil. (p. 51)

...is the carbon molecule lined with thought?

If I'm out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.

I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.

No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.

Towards the end of your life you have something like a pain schedule to fill out - a long schedule like a federal document, only it's your pain schedule. Endless categories. First, physical causes - like arthritis, gallstones, menstrual cramps. New category, injured vanity, betrayal, swindle, injustice. But the hardest items of all have to do with love. The question then is: So why does everybody persist? If love cuts them up so much.

At moments I dislike having a face, a nose, lips, because he has them.

Certain blood will be given for half certain reasons, as in all wars.

I’ve had all the monstrosity I want.

... an era of turmoil and ideological confusion, the principal phenomenon of the present age.

Some people, if they didn't make it hard for themselves, might fall asleep.

I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists.

When I didn't argue he was satisfied he had persuaded me, and was not the first to make that mistake.

Unfortunately for the betterment of mankind it is not always the fair-minded who are in the right.

Ninety per cent of life is a nightmare, do you think I am going to get it rounded up to hundred per cent?

The first undressing of two lovers is a most special event.

Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.

It's goodbye to reality when love sets in.

I'm glad I haven't lived in vain.

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.

I don't know exactly how it's done. I let it alone a good deal.