Quote

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.

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
Come
Driving
Splinter
Something
Window
Splinters
Years
Losing
Plate
Like
Pieces
Shattered
Parent
Picking
Lasts
Plates
Last
Glass
Didn
Glasses
Glassy

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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Art is order, made out of the chaos of life.
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I must play the instrument I've got.
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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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There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.
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Fun comes hard - like, alas, its prarens, pleasure and happiness, whom we have to pursue.
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Conquered people tend to be witty.
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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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Language is a spiritual mansion in which you live and nobody has the right to evict you.
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... unless you made your life a turning point, there was no reason for existing.
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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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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?
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Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
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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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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 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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When I didn't argue he was satisfied he had persuaded me, and was not the first to make that mistake.
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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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It is a joy to be choked with thought.
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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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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.
Saul Bellow