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“There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.”

Saul Bellow

Quoted by Granville Hicks in The Living Novel: A Symposium (Macmillan, 1957; digitized version in 2006), p. ix
General sources

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

Saul Bellow

BBC radio interview, The Listener (London, 1969-05-22)
General sources

“Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.”

Saul Bellow book Dangling Man

Dangling Man (1944) [Penguin Classics, 1996, ISBN 0-140-18935-1], p. 84
General sources

“Facts always are sensational.”

Saul Bellow book Seize the Day

Source: Seize the Day

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

Saul Bellow book Humboldt's Gift

Source: Humboldt's Gift

“Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest, ehrlich. Don't have a loud mouth. The more you love people the more they'll mix you up. A child loves, a person respects. Respect is better than love.”

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March

“It would not be practical for her to hate herself. Luckily, God sends a substitute, a husband.”

Saul Bellow book Herzog

Source: Herzog

“It seems, after all that there are no nonpeculiar people.”

Saul Bellow book Humboldt's Gift

Source: Humboldt's Gift

“One must bear in mind the odd angle or slant that the rays of love have to take in order to reach a heart like mine.”

Saul Bellow book Humboldt's Gift

Source: Humboldt's Gift

“She's very pretty but she's honey from the icebox, if you know what I mean. Cold sweets won't spread.”

Saul Bellow book Humboldt's Gift

Source: Humboldt's Gift

“Conquered people tend to be witty.”

Saul Bellow

Mr. Sammler's planet, (1976), p. 98
General sources

“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. It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!”

Saul Bellow book Henderson the Rain King

General sources
Source: Henderson the Rain King (1959) [Viking/Penguin, 1984, ISBN 0-140-07269-1], ch. XVIII, p. 271

“Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death.”

Saul Bellow book Humboldt's Gift

Source: Humboldt's Gift

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

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March

“I mean you have been disappointed in love, but don't you know how many things there are to be disappointed in besides love? You are lucky to be still disappointed in love. Later it may be even more terrible.”

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March

“Bringing people into the here-and-now. The real universe. That's the present moment. The past is no good to us. The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real--the here-and-now. Seize the day.”

Saul Bellow book Seize the Day

Source: Seize the Day

“Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone.”

Saul Bellow book Ravelstein

Source: Ravelstein