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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.

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
Alternatives
Life
Worth
Dead
Rather
Wish
Unexamined
Examined
Living
Socrates
Given
Alternative
Makes

More quotes by Saul Bellow

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I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.
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A good novel is worth more then the best scientific study.
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Is our species crazy? Plenty of evidence.
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The best and purest human beings, from the beginning of time, have understood that life is sacred.
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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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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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I am moneys medium. It passes through me- taxes, insurance, mortgage, child support, rent, legal fees. All this dignified blundering costs plenty.
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Fidelity is for phonographs
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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.
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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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I must play the instrument I've got.
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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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A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
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With one long breath, caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life. Don't cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don't poison everything.
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I don’t actually take much stock in the collapsing culture bit. I’m beginning to see it instead as the conduct of life without input from your soul.
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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
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(Socrates) said there were only two possibilities. Either the soul is immortal or, after death, things would be again as blank as they were before we were born.
Saul Bellow
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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.
Saul Bellow
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Art is order, made out of the chaos of life.
Saul Bellow
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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.
Saul Bellow