“In an age of enormities, the emotions are naturally weakened.”

— Saul Bellow

"The Distracted Public" (1990), p. 156
It All Adds Up (1994)
Context: In an age of enormities, the emotions are naturally weakened. We are continually called upon to have feelings — about genocide, for instance, or about famine or the blowing up of passenger planes — and we are all aware that we are incapable of reacting appropriately. A guilty consciousness of emotional inadequacy or impotence makes people doubt their own human weight.

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Saul Bellow 103

Canadian-born American writer 1915–2005

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