Quote

There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.

Saul Bellow

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Saul Bellow
Age: 89 †
Born: 1915
Born: June 10
Died: 2005
Died: April 5
Author
Essayist
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Solomon Bellows
Human
Flexibility
Humans
Flexible
Life
Immense
Account
Longing
Fuller
Accounts
Coherent
Painful
Broader
Beings
Comprehensive

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One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance and this fantasy (?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment.
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Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.
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In here, the human bosom -- mine, yours, everybody's -- there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me?
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I want to tell you, don't marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it's adultery.
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You have one of two choices. Either you can panic and start making frantic attempts to reform under the glare of these awful critical eyes, or you can just say, The hell with you! I know what I'm doing. If you don't yet, it's because you haven't given me an attentive reading.
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Each man has his own batch of poems.
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Conquered people tend to be witty.
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Ninety per cent of life is a nightmare, do you think I am going to get it rounded up to hundred per cent?
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I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally.
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... a fellow can't predict what he will pick up in the form of influence.
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Fidelity is for phonographs
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People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.
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I seem to have the blind self-acceptance of the eccentric who can't conceive that his eccentricities are not clearly understood.
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We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.
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Americans must be the most sententious people in history. Far too busy to be religious, they have always felt that they sorely needed guidance.
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It's not up to me ... to make the world consistent.
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Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
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In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too
Saul Bellow
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The best and purest human beings, from the beginning of time, have understood that life is sacred.
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You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
Saul Bellow