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I do not say correct or savory. I do not say seemly or even natural. I say serious. Sensationally serious. Unspeakably serious. Solemnly, recklessly, blissfully serious.

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
Savory
Recklessly
Solemnly
Correct
Serious
Natural
Seemly
Even
Blissfully
Unspeakably

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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 know I'm not going to write as well as I used to. I no longer have the stamina to endure the frustration. Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation.
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It's amazing how much punishment we can take.
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I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.
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Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline.
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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.
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One either imposes one's ideas or one is imposed on.
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Too late, but I understand. That we don't perish of understanding everything too late, that is a miracle. But we do perish of that -- of just that.
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At a certain stage of misery, you'll try anything to explain what's going on with you, even if you know it doesn't explain a thing and it's one failed explanation after another.
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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.
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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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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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Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?
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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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Let's hope the first comes first.
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He was no more, freed from being, entering into nowhere without even knowing it. Just as he'd feared from the start.
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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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There’s no remaking reality... Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There’s no other way.
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The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.
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It's the little questions from women about tappets that finally push men over the edge.
Philip Roth