Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Book
Occupied
Feel
Ashes
Feels
Starts
Writing
Story
Really
Living
Process
Tell
Stories

More quotes by Philip Roth

Image
I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.
Philip Roth
Image
The tragedy of the man not set up for tragedy ? that is every man?s tragedy.
Philip Roth
Image
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.
Philip Roth
Image
The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open.
Philip Roth
Image
It’s amazing what lies people can sustain behind the mask of their real faces.
Philip Roth
Image
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.
Philip Roth
Image
I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.
Philip Roth
Image
The best readers come to fiction to be free of ... all that isn't fiction.
Philip Roth
Image
The signore...wishes her to begin at the beginning.
Philip Roth
Image
When I was a child... I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, 'Momma, do we believe in winter?'
Philip Roth
Image
I haven't written a word of fiction since 2009. I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did and it's done. There's more to life than writing and publishing fiction. There is another way entirely, amazed as I am to discover it at this late date.
Philip Roth
Image
Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.
Philip Roth
Image
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.
Philip Roth
Image
Doctor doctor, what do you say, lets put the id back in yid
Philip Roth
Image
Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. the illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on. What else could? As pathological phenomena go, it doesn't completely wreck your life.
Philip Roth
Image
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
Image
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
Philip Roth
Image
Like all enjoyable things, you see, it has unenjoyable parts to it.
Philip Roth
Image
--nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others
Philip Roth
Image
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