Latest Philip Roth Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story.

  Philip Roth

  Writing, Take Time, My Way

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• When I have a first draft, I have a floor under my feet that I can walk on. Then, especially with the help of the computer, rewriting is so easy to do with the computer, much easier than it used to be with the typewriter. So the books go through numerous drafts.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Helping, Computer

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Writing, Long

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• The hard part is, of course, the proximity of death. The number has no meaning as long as you're fit and healthy. But you know that you only have so much time left and you don't know how much it is. It could be a very short time.

  Philip Roth

  Long, Healthy, Fit

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel really.

  Philip Roth

  Week, Novel

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• I work just as much as I always worked. And I can't explain the fact that there have been a series of books coming rather regularly out of me. I work most days and if you work most days and you get at least a page done a day, then at the end of the year you have 365. So the pages accumulate and then I publish the books.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Done, Publish

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• What I would really love to happen to me would be if I came upon an idea that would keep me busy until I die so I wouldn't have to go through the business of thinking up a new book. But I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• I'm an Obama supporter. And if you're an Obama supporter that means you had a hard time during the Bush years.

  Philip Roth

  Mean, Hard Times, Years

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• Each book starts from ashes really. I don't feel that I have this to say or that to say or this story to tell or that story to tell, but I want to be occupied with the writing process while I'm living.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Writing, Ashes

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• The book can't compete with the screen. It couldn't compete beginning with the movie screen. It couldn't compete with the television screen and it can't compete with the computer screen I don't think. And now we have all those screens so against all those screens I think the book can't measure up.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Thinking, Television

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• To read a novel requires a certain kind of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading. If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel really.

  Philip Roth

  Reading, Two, Focus

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• You don't want to repeat yourself for one. You don't want to fall into the clichés for another. And you don't want to be licentious really. You want to be descriptive, if you can be. And you're not setting out to arouse anybody.

  Philip Roth

  Fall, Want, Repeats

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Rewriting

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• When I have a first draft, I have a floor under my feet that I can walk on. And then, especially with the help of the computer, rewriting is so easy to do with the computer, much easier than it used to be with the typewriter. So the books go through numerous drafts.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Typewriters, Feet

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• I work most days and if you work most days and you get at least a page done a day, then at the end of the year you have 365. So the pages accumulate and then I publish the books.

  Philip Roth

  Book, Years, Done

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• 'Haunted by the past' is a commonplace phrase because it's a commonplace experience. Even if one is not, strictly speaking, 'haunted', the past is perpetually with one in the present, and the longer it grows and the further it recedes the stronger its presence seems to become.

  Philip Roth

  Past, Stronger, Phrases

  Source: www.theguardian.com