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No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you're not superior to sex. It's a very risky game.... It's sex that disorders our normally ordered lives.

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
Thinking
Sex
Risky
Plans
Ordered
Game
Normally
Games
Disorder
Lives
Superior
Matter
Superiors
Much
Plot
Think
Plan
Disorders

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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.
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Doctor doctor, what do you say, lets put the id back in yid
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The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions.
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A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!
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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.
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I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.
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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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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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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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It’s amazing what lies people can sustain behind the mask of their real faces.
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In my childhood I led the life of a sage, when I grew up I started climbing trees
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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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It's the little questions from women about tappets that finally push men over the edge.
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My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets — no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!
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The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.
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Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.
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What I have in mind when I start to write could fit inside an acorn-an acorn, moreover, that rarely if ever grows into an oak. Write fiction and you relinquish reason. You start with an acorn and you end up with a mackerel.
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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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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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I think you're a wonder. You're beautiful. You're mature. You are, I admit, vastly more experienced than I am. That's what threw me. I was thrown. Forgive me.
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