Saul Bellow
Is love supposed to ruin you? It seems to me you shouldn't destroy yourself out of life for purposes of love--or what good is it?Collection: Ruins
Fidelity is for phonographsCollection: Fidelity
Fun comes hard - like, alas, its prarens, pleasure and happiness, whom we have to pursue.Collection: Fun
It's not up to me ... to make the world consistent.Collection: Consistency
At moments I dislike having a face, a nose, lips, because he has them.Collection: Noses
And what about all the good I have in my heart - does it mean anything?Collection: Heart
...is the carbon molecule lined with thought?Collection: Molecules
I have, perhaps, a slave-like constitution which is too easily restrained by bonds; it then becomes rebellious and bursts out in a comic revolution.Collection: Revolution
The writer cannot make the seas of distraction stand still, but he [or she] can at times come between the madly distracted and the distractions.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Running
The more realistic you are the more you threaten the grounds of your own art.Collection: Art
I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally.Collection: Men
The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether.Collection: Ideas
How should I know why! I didn't invent human beings, Iggy.Collection: Should
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.Collection: Character
"What do women want?" "They eat green salad and drink human blood."Collection: Blood
Art -- the fresh feeling, new harmony, the transforming magic which by means of myth brings back the scattered distracted soul from its modern chaos -- art, not politics, is the remedy.Collection: Art
I don't know exactly how it's done. I let it alone a good deal.Collection: Done
A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. It tells us that for every human being there is a diversity of existences, that the single existence is itself an illusion in part, that these many existences signify something, tend to something, fulfill something; it promises us meaning, harmony, and even justice.Collection: Justice
But she's a nut, and nuts win.Collection: Winning
A good novel is worth more then the best scientific study.Collection: Writing
Each man has his own batch of poems.Collection: Men
It is sometimes necessary to repeat what all know. All mapmakers should place the Mississippi in the same location and avoid originality.Collection: Location
In the history of the world many souls have been, are, and will be, and with a little reflection this is marvelous and not depressing. Many jerks are made gloomy about it, for they think quantity buries them alive. That's just crazy. Numbers are very dangerous, but the main thing about them is that they humble your pride. And that's good.Collection: Depressing
I am deeply moved when I write. I get turned on by it. I've never used any drugs for stimulation. I don't use words loosely. When I'm working and the right word comes, there is an answering resonance within me. There is also a hardness of intention that goes with it. There is no idleness in it.Collection: Writing
There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it it got even stronger.Collection: Passion
But there are things you can't consult anybody about.Collection: Confiding
The secret motive of the absent-minded is to be innocent while guilty. Absent-mindedness is spurious innocence.Collection: Secret
I don't like to write from a flat, cold position. You must like what you're doing very much or like the people -- either like them or hate them. You can't be indifferent.Collection: Hate
I pretended not to understand. One of life's hardest jobs, to make a quick understanding slow. I think I succeeded, thought Herzog.Collection: Jobs
The best argument is an undeniably good book.Collection: Book
My face too blind, my mind too limited, my instincts too narrow. But this intensity, doesn't it mean anything?Collection: Life
But privately when things got very bad I often looked into books to see whether I could find some helpful words, and one day I read, "The forgiveness of sins is perpetual and righteousness first is not required." This impressed me so deeply that I went around saying it to myself. But then I forgot which book it was.Collection: Book
In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn’t tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.Collection: Country
California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn’t really need. You can quote me on that.Collection: Country
When I didn’t argue he was satisfied he had persuaded me, and was not the first to make that mistake.Collection: Firsts
Fun comes hard – like, alas, its prarens, pleasure and happiness, whom we have to pursue.Collection: Fun