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Conquered people tend to be witty.

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
People
Conquered
Witty
Tend
Philosophy
History
Art

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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A man may say, From now on I'm going to speak the truth. But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.
Saul Bellow
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There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it it got even stronger.
Saul Bellow
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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?
Saul Bellow
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O Lord! he concluded, forgive all these trespasses. Lead me not into Penn Station.
Saul Bellow
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Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But the over-examined life makes you wish you were dead. Given the alternative, I'd rather be living.
Saul Bellow
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I must play the instrument I've got.
Saul Bellow
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A writer is in the broadest sense a spokesman of his community. Through him that community comes to know its heart. Without such knowledge, how long can it survive?
Saul Bellow
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What do women want? They eat green salad and drink human blood.
Saul Bellow
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Art attempts to find in the universe, in matter as well as in the facts of life, what is fundamental, enduring, essential.
Saul Bellow
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With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you've fallen into good hands - someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.
Saul Bellow
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It seems hard for the American people to believe that anything could be more exciting than the times themselves. What we read daily and view on the TV has thrust imagined forms into the shadow. We are staggeringly rich in facts, in things, and perhaps, like the nouveau riche of other ages, we want our wealth faithfully reproduced by the artist.
Saul Bellow
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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?
Saul Bellow
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Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn't know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you're picking up the pieces -- down to the last glassy splinter.
Saul Bellow
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If I had a child of school age, I would send him to one of the Waldorf Schools.
Saul Bellow
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You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
Saul Bellow
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The two real problems in life are boredom and death.
Saul Bellow
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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.
Saul Bellow
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We mustn't forget how quickly the visions of genius become the canned goods of intellectuals.
Saul Bellow
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Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can't open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated.
Saul Bellow
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If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
Saul Bellow