Philip Roth Inspirational Quotes (83)

Being in the dark from sentence to sentence is what convinces me to go on.

I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, Is he as crazy as I am? I don’t need that question answered.

And as he spoke, I was thinking, 'the kind of stories that people turn life into, the kind of lives people turn stories into.

Doctor doctor, what do you say, lets put the id back in yid

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

As for himself, however hateful life was, it was hateful in a home and not in the gutter. Many Americans hated their homes. The number of homeless in America couldn't touch the number of Americans who had homes and families and hated the whole thing.

Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear.Of course no childhood is without its terrors, yet I wonder if I would have been a less frightened boy if Lindbergh hadn't been president or if I hadn't been the offspring of Jews.

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off the belief it inspires is what counts.

--nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others

It's amazing how much punishment we can take.

It's best to give while your hand is still warm.