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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?

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
Gain
Gains
Writer
Question
Asks
Badly
Doe
Mask
Wearing
Behave

More quotes by Philip Roth

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I'm an Obama supporter. And if you're an Obama supporter that means you had a hard time during the Bush years.
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A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die!
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Doctor doctor, what do you say, lets put the id back in yid
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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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You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.
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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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Nothing lasts and yet nothing passes either, and nothing passes just because nothing lasts.
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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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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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Being in the dark from sentence to sentence is what convinces me to go on.
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The signore...wishes her to begin at the beginning.
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There were many hours when I never quite know how I'd gotten there or why I stayed.
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The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.
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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.
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It's the little questions from women about tappets that finally push men over the edge.
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One either imposes one's ideas or one is imposed on.
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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.
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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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I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface
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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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