Quote

Americans must be the most sententious people in history. Far too busy to be religious, they have always felt that they sorely needed guidance.

Saul Bellow

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Saul Bellow
Age: 89 †
Born: 1915
Born: June 10
Died: 2005
Died: April 5
Author
Essayist
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Solomon Bellows
Religious
History
Felt
Must
Sorely
Always
Guidance
People
Busy
Americans
Needed

More quotes by Saul Bellow

Image
There is simply too much to think about.
Saul Bellow
Image
The best and purest human beings, from the beginning of time, have understood that life is sacred.
Saul Bellow
Image
I must play the instrument I've got.
Saul Bellow
Image
Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage it is harder to find out how he feels.
Saul Bellow
Image
How could I be anything but a dissenter? Who wants the opinion of a group?
Saul Bellow
Image
Art is order, made out of the chaos of life.
Saul Bellow
Image
There's a kind of emptiness at the center of life ... nothing to form your life on, or by.
Saul Bellow
Image
A human soul devoid of longing was a soul deformed, deprived of its highest good, sick unto death.
Saul Bellow
Image
Excuse me ... but I reject your definitions of me.
Saul Bellow
Image
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul Bellow
Image
It seems hard for the American people to believe that anything could be more exciting than the times themselves. What we read daily and view on the TV has thrust imagined forms into the shadow. We are staggeringly rich in facts, in things, and perhaps, like the nouveau riche of other ages, we want our wealth faithfully reproduced by the artist.
Saul Bellow
Image
And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.
Saul Bellow
Image
In here, the human bosom -- mine, yours, everybody's -- there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me?
Saul Bellow
Image
I am moneys medium. It passes through me- taxes, insurance, mortgage, child support, rent, legal fees. All this dignified blundering costs plenty.
Saul Bellow
Image
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.
Saul Bellow
Image
People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.
Saul Bellow
Image
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
Image
Death deserves dignity.
Saul Bellow
Image
Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But the over-examined life makes you wish you were dead. Given the alternative, I'd rather be living.
Saul Bellow
Image
Only self-hatred could lead him to ruin himself because his heart was broken.
Saul Bellow