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The two real problems in life are boredom and death.

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
Death
Two
Problem
Real
Life
Boredom
Problems

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.
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I am deeply moved when I write. I get turned on by it. I've never used any drugs for stimulation. I don't use words loosely. When I'm working and the right word comes, there is an answering resonance within me. There is also a hardness of intention that goes with it. There is no idleness in it.
Saul Bellow
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With one long breath, caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life. Don't cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don't poison everything.
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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.
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You're all alone when you're a writer. Sometimes you just feel you need a humanity bath. Even a ride on the subway will do that. But it's much more interesting to talk about books. After all, that's what life used to be for writers: they talk books, politics, history, America. Nothing has replaced that.
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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You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
Saul Bellow
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Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
Saul Bellow
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A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
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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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If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
Saul Bellow
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Fun comes hard - like, alas, its prarens, pleasure and happiness, whom we have to pursue.
Saul Bellow
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(Socrates) said there were only two possibilities. Either the soul is immortal or, after death, things would be again as blank as they were before we were born.
Saul Bellow
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In the history of the world many souls have been, are, and will be, and with a little reflection this is marvelous and not depressing. Many jerks are made gloomy about it, for they think quantity buries them alive. That's just crazy. Numbers are very dangerous, but the main thing about them is that they humble your pride. And that's good.
Saul Bellow
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My face too blind, my mind too limited, my instincts too narrow. But this intensity, doesn't it mean anything?
Saul Bellow
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The ocean was waiting with grand and bitter provocations, as if it invited you to think how deep it was, how much colder than your blood or saltier, or to outguess it, to tell which were its feints or passes and which its real intentions, meaning business.
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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Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
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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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