Saul Bellow: Trending quotes (page 3)

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

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

“Facts always are sensational.”

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

“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.”

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

“We are always looking for the book it is necessary to read next.”

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

“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.”

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

“Unless you're completely exploded, there's always something to be grateful for.”

“Conquered people tend to be witty.”

“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!”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“You have to fight for your life. That's the chief condition on which you hold it.”

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