Quote

One of the booby traps of freedom - which is bordered on all sides by isolation - is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life's banquet.

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
Life
Cutting
Bordered
Sides
Booby
Freedom
Banquet
Best
Banquets
Wells
Traps
Well
Cuts
Think
Isolation
Thinking
Helped

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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There is simply too much to think about.
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Is our species crazy? Plenty of evidence.
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The modern reader (or viewer, or listener: let's include everybody) is perilously overloaded. His attention is, to use the latest lingo,'targeted' by powerful forces? Our consciousness is a staging area, a field of operations for all kinds of enterprises, which make free use of it.
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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.
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Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything
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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.
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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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.
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... a fellow can't predict what he will pick up in the form of influence.
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In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries.
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How should I know why! I didn't invent human beings, Iggy.
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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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I have, perhaps, a slave-like constitution which is too easily restrained by bonds it then becomes rebellious and bursts out in a comic revolution.
Saul Bellow
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I am moneys medium. It passes through me- taxes, insurance, mortgage, child support, rent, legal fees. All this dignified blundering costs plenty.
Saul Bellow
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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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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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I don't like to write from a flat, cold position. You must like what you're doing very much or like the people -- either like them or hate them. You can't be indifferent.
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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Retirement is an illusion. Not a reward but a mantrap. The bankrupt underside of success. A shortcut to death. Golf courses are too much like cemeteries.
Saul Bellow
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From Euclid to Newton there were straight lines. The modern age analyzes the wavers.
Saul Bellow