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Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything

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
Dark
Death
Anything
Needs
Backing
Ministry
Mirror
Mirrors

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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The more realistic you are the more you threaten the grounds of your own art.
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The hour that burst the spirit's sleep.
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When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
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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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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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Art attempts to find in the universe, in matter as well as in the facts of life, what is fundamental, enduring, essential.
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Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
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For the first time in history, the human species as a whole has gone into politics. Everyone is in the act, and there is no telling what may come of it.
Saul Bellow
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It is a joy to be choked with thought.
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To tell the truth I never had it so good. But I lacked the strength of character to bear such joy.
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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.
Saul Bellow
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... an era of turmoil and ideological confusion, the principal phenomenon of the present age.
Saul Bellow
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It is sometimes necessary to repeat what all know. All mapmakers should place the Mississippi in the same location and avoid originality.
Saul Bellow
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She's very pretty but she's honey from the icebox, if you know what I mean. Cold sweets won't spread.
Saul Bellow
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I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.
Saul Bellow
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A human soul devoid of longing was a soul deformed, deprived of its highest good, sick unto death.
Saul Bellow
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I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'
Saul Bellow
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Is our species crazy? Plenty of evidence.
Saul Bellow
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Death deserves dignity.
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