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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?

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
Long
Writer
Community
Knowledge
Comes
Sense
Without
Spokesman
Writing
Broadest
Heart
Survive

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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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
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... unless you made your life a turning point, there was no reason for existing.
Saul Bellow
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A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
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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The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man's life is not a business.
Saul Bellow
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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
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One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance and this fantasy (?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment.
Saul Bellow
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How should I know why! I didn't invent human beings, Iggy.
Saul Bellow
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Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
Saul Bellow
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Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.
Saul Bellow
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I’ve had all the monstrosity I want.
Saul Bellow
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Associate with the noblest people you can find read the best books live with the mighty but learn to be happy alone.
Saul Bellow
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... an era of turmoil and ideological confusion, the principal phenomenon of the present age.
Saul Bellow
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The writer cannot make the seas of distraction stand still, but he [or she] can at times come between the madly distracted and the distractions.
Saul Bellow
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The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.
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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Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death.
Saul Bellow
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If I'm out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.
Saul Bellow
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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.
Saul Bellow
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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.
Saul Bellow