Saul Bellow citations

Page 2

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

“With one long breath, caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life. Don't cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don't poison everything…”

“I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists.”

“A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.”

“I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you."”

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

“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 love solitude but I prize it most when company is available.”

“People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.”

“She was what we used to call a suicide blonde-- dyed by her own hand.”

“I am a true adorer of life, and if I can't reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation.”

“Myself is thus and so, and will continue thus and so. And why fight it? My balance comes from instability.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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!”

“Conquered people tend to be witty.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“Facts always are sensational.”