Saul Bellow Quotes - Page 4

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• The fact that there are so many weak, poor and boring stories and novels written and published in America has been ascribed by our rebels to the horrible squareness of our institutions, the idiocy of power, the debasement of sexual instincts, and the failure of writers to be alienated enough. The poems and novels of these same rebellious spirits, and their theoretical statements, are grimy and gritty and very boring too, besides being nonsensical, and it is evident by now that polymorphous sexuality and vehement declarations of alienation are not going to produce great works of art either.

  Saul Bellow

  Art, America, Poetry

  Saul Bellow (2015). “There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction”, p.149, Penguin

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• What Homo sapien imagines, he may slowly convert himself to.

  Saul Bellow

  Imagination, May, Imagine

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• It is a joy to be choked with thought.

  Saul Bellow

  Joy

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Viking Adult

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• Retirement is an illusion. Not a reward but a mantrap. The bankrupt underside of success. A shortcut to death. Golf courses are too much like cemeteries.

  Saul Bellow

  Retirement, Golf, Too Much

  Saul Bellow (2009). “The Actual: A Novella”, p.38, Penguin

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• He believed that he must, that he could and would recover the good things, the happy things, the easy tranquil things of life. He had made mistakes, but he could overlook these. He had been a fool, but that could be forgiven. The time wasted--must be relinquished. What else could one do about it? Things were too complex, but they might be reduced to simplicity again. Recovery was possible.

  Saul Bellow

  Mistake, Recovery, Simplicity

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• Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.

  Saul Bellow

  Decision, Tree, Alternatives

  SAUL BELLOW (1944). “DANGLING MAN”

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

  Saul Bellow

  Kindness, Men, Vacuums

  SAUL BELLOW (1944). “DANGLING MAN”

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• We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.

  Saul Bellow

  Inspirational, Stars, Fire

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• In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.

  Saul Bellow

  Business, Confusion, Soul

  Foreword to "The Closing of the American Mind" by Allan Bloom, 1987.

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• The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.

  Saul Bellow

  Love, Funny, Soul

  "Him with His Foot in His Mouth" (1984)

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• How could I be anything but a dissenter? Who wants the opinion of a group?

  Saul Bellow

  Groups, Want, Opinion

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• When I didn't argue he was satisfied he had persuaded me, and was not the first to make that mistake.

  Saul Bellow

  Mistake, Firsts, Arguing

  Saul Bellow (2012). “The Adventures of Augie March”, p.477, Penguin UK

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• Art is order, made out of the chaos of life.

  Saul Bellow

  Art, Order, Chaos

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• The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man's life is not a business.

  Saul Bellow

  Men, Citizens, Becoming

  Saul Bellow (1964). “Herzog”

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• Let the enemies of life step down.

  Saul Bellow

  Life, Enemy, Steps

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Viking Adult

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• I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

  Saul Bellow

  Art, Attention, Distraction

  "Conversations with Saul Bellow".

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• If I had a child of school age, I would send him to one of the Waldorf Schools.

  Saul Bellow

  Children, School, Age

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

  Saul Bellow

  Fall, People, Might

  Saul Bellow (2003). “Novels, 1944-1953”

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• Well, everybody has a history.

  Saul Bellow

  History, Wells

  Saul Bellow (2015). “Mr. Sammler's Planet”, p.99, Odyssey Editions

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• I've 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.'

  Saul Bellow

  Love, Writing, Heart

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• The physical body is an agent of the spirit and its mirror. It is an engine and a reflection of the spirit. It is the spirit's ingenious memorandum to itself and the spirit sees itself in my body, just as I see my own face in a looking glass. My nerves reflect this. The earth is literally a mirror of thoughts. Objects themselves are embodied thoughts. Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.

  Saul Bellow

  Dark, Reflection, Glasses

  Saul Bellow (2008). “Humboldt's Gift”, Penguin Classics

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• A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.

  Saul Bellow

  Impression, Novel, Multitudes

  Speech on receiving the Nobel Prize, 1976

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• I've never turned over a fig leaf yet that didn't have a price tag on the other side.

  Saul Bellow

  Price Tag, Two Sides, Figs

  "Bellow in his own words". www.theguardian.com. April 6, 2005.

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• Here we write well when we expose frauds and hypocrites. We are great at counting warts and blemishes and weighting feet of clay. In expressing love, we belong among the underdeveloped countries.

  Saul Bellow

  Country, Writing, Hypocrite

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• 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.

  Saul Bellow

  Sadness, Solitary Life, Long

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