Quote

The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether.

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
Sometimes
Hold
Altogether
Trying
Existence
Hostile
Force
Frequently
Often
Forces
Seems
Deny
Soul
Indeed
Ideas
Ground
Annul
Find
Seem
Embodied

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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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I seem to have the blind self-acceptance of the eccentric who can't conceive that his eccentricities are not clearly understood.
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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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Hapiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.
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It wasn't that he was specially ungenerous but that he put things off to give his generosity a longer and more significant route.
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She's very pretty but she's honey from the icebox, if you know what I mean. Cold sweets won't spread.
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The two real problems in life are boredom and death.
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You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
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I want to tell you, don't marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it's adultery.
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Fidelity is for phonographs
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A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
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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.
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It is wrong to turn a man (a subject) into a thing (an object). By means of spiritual dialogue, the I-It relationship becomes an I-Thou relationship. God comes and goes in man's soul. And men come and go in each other's souls. Sometimes they come and go in each other's beds, too.
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Well, everybody has a history.
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I must play the instrument I've got.
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In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too
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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.
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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.
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All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination.
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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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