Quote

You have one of two choices. Either you can panic and start making frantic attempts to reform under the glare of these awful critical eyes, or you can just say, The hell with you! I know what I'm doing. If you don't yet, it's because you haven't given me an attentive reading.

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
Two
Either
Panic
Eyes
Reform
Choices
Awful
Start
Critical
Reading
Criticism
Attentive
Eye
Havens
Glare
Making
Haven
Frantic
Given
Hell
Attempts

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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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In politics continental Europe was infantile - horrifying. What America lacked, for all its political stability, was the capacity to enjoy intellectual pleasures as though they were sensual pleasures. This is what Europe offered, or was said to offer.
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Hapiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.
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Fun comes hard - like, alas, its prarens, pleasure and happiness, whom we have to pursue.
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A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.
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From Euclid to Newton there were straight lines. The modern age analyzes the wavers.
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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?
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Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.
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... unless you made your life a turning point, there was no reason for existing.
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Each man has his own batch of poems.
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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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O Lord! he concluded, forgive all these trespasses. Lead me not into Penn Station.
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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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It's goodbye to reality when love sets in.
Saul Bellow
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And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.
Saul Bellow
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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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The two real problems in life are boredom and death.
Saul Bellow
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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.
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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.
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I pretended not to understand. One of life's hardest jobs, to make a quick understanding slow. I think I succeeded, thought Herzog.
Saul Bellow