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Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.

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
Trees
Particularly
Grow
Tree
Decision
Grows
Desirable
Imaginary
Alternatives

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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From Euclid to Newton there were straight lines. The modern age analyzes the wavers.
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
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... a fellow can't predict what he will pick up in the form of influence.
Saul Bellow
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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.
Saul Bellow
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An exchange occurs between man and woman. Love and thought complete each other in the human pair, and something like an exchange of souls takes place, according to the divine plan.
Saul Bellow
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The writer cannot make the seas of distraction stand still, but he [or she] can at times come between the madly distracted and the distractions.
Saul Bellow
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There are times when the most practical thing is to lie down.
Saul Bellow
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One must bear in mind the odd angle or slant that the rays of love have to take in order to reach a heart like mine.
Saul Bellow
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You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
Saul Bellow
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I blame myself for not often enough seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Somewhere in his journals, Dostoyevky remarks that a writer can begin anywhere, at the most commonplace thing, scratch around in it long enough, pry and dig away long enough, and lo!, soon he will hit upon the marvelous.
Saul Bellow
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It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart.
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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The sand swallows burst out of their scupper holes in the bluffs and out over the transparent drown of the water, back again to the white, to the brown, to the black, from moving to stock-still sand waves and water-worked woods and roots that hugged and twisted in the sun.
Saul Bellow
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Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage it is harder to find out how he feels.
Saul Bellow
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Associate with the noblest people you can find read the best books live with the mighty but learn to be happy alone.
Saul Bellow
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Boredom is the conviction that you can't change ... the shriek of unused capacities.
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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The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.
Saul Bellow
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When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Saul Bellow
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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.
Saul Bellow