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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.

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
Tell
Truth
Character
Good
Lacked
Never
Bear
Bears
Strength
Joy

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People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.
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The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.
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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.
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Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death.
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The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.
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Excuse me ... but I reject your definitions of me.
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Live or die but don't poison everything.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It's no disgrace to be a private, you know. Socrates was a plain foot soldier, a hoplite.
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It's goodbye to reality when love sets in.
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I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos.
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You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
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Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
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And I said to myself that unless you conceive Death to be a violent guerrilla and kidnaper who snatches those you love, and if you are not cowardly and cannot submit to such terrorism as civilized people now do in every department of life, you must pursue and inquire and explore every possibility and seek everywhere and try everything.
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In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries.
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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.
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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.
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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.'
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