Saul Bellow Quotes - Page 9

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

  Saul Bellow

  Thinking, Nightmare, Life Is

  5 Copy quote

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

  Saul Bellow

  Mind, Moses, Of My Mind

  Herzog (1961) p. 1 (opening sentence)

  4 Copy quote

• A writer is a reader moved to emulation.

  Saul Bellow

  Writing, Emulation, Reader

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• The hour that burst the spirit's sleep.

  Saul Bellow

  Sleep, Spirit, Hours

  Saul Bellow (2013). “Henderson the Rain King”, p.82, Penguin UK

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• I seem to have the blind self-acceptance of the eccentric who can't conceive that his eccentricities are not clearly understood.

  Saul Bellow

  Acceptance, Self, Eccentric

  Saul Bellow, Gloria L. Cronin, Ben Siegel (1994). “Conversations with Saul Bellow”, p.67, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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

  Saul Bellow

  Sweet, Mean, Honey

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

  6 Copy quote

• The modern reader (or viewer, or listener: let's include everybody) is perilously overloaded. His attention is, to use the latest lingo,'targeted' by powerful forces? Our consciousness is a staging area, a field of operations for all kinds of enterprises, which make free use of it.

  Saul Bellow

  Powerful, Attention, Use

  1989 Something To Remember Me By, preface.

  7 Copy quote

• One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance and this fantasy (?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment.

  Saul Bellow

  Ideas, People, Mad

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  4 Copy quote

• Great pressure is brought to bear to make us undervalue ourselves. On the other hand, civilization teaches that each of us is an inestimable prize. There are, then, these two preparations: one for life and the other for death. Therefore we value and are ashamed to value ourselves.

  Saul Bellow

  Self, Hands, Civilization

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

  4 Copy quote

• It's hard for writers to get on with their work if they are convinced that they owe a concrete debt to experience and cannot allow themselves the privilege of ranging freely through social classes and professional specialties. A certain pride in their own experience, perhaps a sense of the property rights of others in their experience, holds them back.

  Saul Bellow

  Pride, Rights, Class

  Saul Bellow (2016). “It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future”, p.62, Odyssey Editions

  4 Copy quote

• For God's sake,' the dog is saying, 'open the universe a little more!

  Saul Bellow

  Dog, Littles, Sake

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• ... unless you made your life a turning point, there was no reason for existing.

  Saul Bellow

  Transformation, Reason, Made

  Saul Bellow (2013). “More Die of Heartbreak”, p.222, Penguin UK

  5 Copy quote

• The sand swallows burst out of their scupper holes in the bluffs and out over the transparent drown of the water, back again to the white, to the brown, to the black, from moving to stock-still sand waves and water-worked woods and roots that hugged and twisted in the sun.

  Saul Bellow

  Moving, Roots, White

  Saul Bellow (1984). “The Adventures of Augie March”

  4 Copy quote

• The ocean was waiting with grand and bitter provocations, as if it invited you to think how deep it was, how much colder than your blood or saltier, or to outguess it, to tell which were its feints or passes and which its real intentions, meaning business.

  Saul Bellow

  Real, Ocean, Thinking

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• O Lord! he concluded, forgive all these trespasses. Lead me not into Penn Station.

  Saul Bellow

  Forgiving, Lord, Leading Me

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  5 Copy quote

• The only real distinction at this dangerous moment in human history and cosmic development has nothing to do with medals and ribbons. Not to fall asleep is distinguished. Everything else is mere popcorn.

  Saul Bellow

  Art, Philosophy, Real

  1975 Humboldt's Gift.

  7 Copy quote

• I am an American – Chicago born.

  Saul Bellow

  Chicago, Born

  1953 The Adventures of Augie March.

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• It wasn't that he was specially ungenerous but that he put things off to give his generosity a longer and more significant route.

  Saul Bellow

  Generosity, Giving, Significant

  Saul Bellow (1984). “The Adventures of Augie March”

  8 Copy quote

• In politics continental Europe was infantile - horrifying. What America lacked, for all its political stability, was the capacity to enjoy intellectual pleasures as though they were sensual pleasures. This is what Europe offered, or was said to offer.

  Saul Bellow

  Europe, America, Political

  Saul Bellow (2016). “It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future”, p.204, Odyssey Editions

  5 Copy quote

• It seems hard for the American people to believe that anything could be more exciting than the times themselves. What we read daily and view on the TV has thrust imagined forms into the shadow. We are staggeringly rich in facts, in things, and perhaps, like the nouveau riche of other ages, we want our wealth faithfully reproduced by the artist.

  Saul Bellow

  Believe, Artist, Views

  Saul Bellow (2016). “It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future”, p.62, Odyssey Editions

  4 Copy quote

• I must play the instrument I've got.

  Saul Bellow

  Music, Play, Instruments

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

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• ... an era of turmoil and ideological confusion, the principal phenomenon of the present age.

  Saul Bellow

  Confusion, Age, Eras

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

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• The dream of man's heart ... is that life may complete in significant pattern.

  Saul Bellow

  Dream, Heart, Men

  4 Copy quote

• It is wrong to turn a man (a subject) into a thing (an object). By means of spiritual dialogue, the I-It relationship becomes an I-Thou relationship. God comes and goes in man's soul. And men come and go in each other's souls. Sometimes they come and go in each other's beds, too.

  Saul Bellow

  Spiritual, Mean, Men

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.

  Saul Bellow

  Cities, Chicago, Protection

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

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