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I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

Philip Roth

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Philip Roth
Age: 85 †
Born: 1933
Born: March 18
Died: 2018
Died: May 22
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Philip Milton Roth
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It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.
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Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.
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Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.
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Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.
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I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.
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You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.
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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.
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Many of the Kiwis appearing in powerful business circles around the world come from accounting backgrounds. Yet often people have preset ideas of how an accountant walks, talks, smells - although not in the business community. For me it is a career that offers a lot of variety and challenges and I love it.
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When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.
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A life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way.
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The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.
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It's best to give while your hand is still warm.
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Sex is all the enchantment required. Do men find women so enchanting once the sex is taken out? Does anyone find anyone that enchanting unless they have sexual business with them? Who else are you enchanted by? Nobody.
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The question to ask about the writer isn't 'Why does he behave so badly?' but 'What does he gain by wearing this mask?
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--nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others
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Being in the dark from sentence to sentence is what convinces me to go on.
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Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defenseless and unprepared. Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
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When I was a child... I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, 'Momma, do we believe in winter?'
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It's the little questions from women about tappets that finally push men over the edge.
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The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.
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