Quotes by Saul Bellow

“Your authority and my degeneracy are one in the same.”

“The Indian temperament is so excitable, you know.”

“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 b...”

“I am not an ornithologistI am a bird.”

“Shall I run back into the desert ... and stay there until the devil has passed out of me and I am fit to meet human kind again without driving it to despair at the first look? I haven't had enough ...”

“No school without spectacular eccentrics and crazy hearts is worth attending.”

“After much effort to live up to a glorious standard there came fatigue, wan hope, and boredom. I experienced extreme boredom. I saw others experiencing it too, many denying, by the way, that any su...”

“You never have to change anything you get up in the middle of the night to write.”

“Bringing people into the here-and-now. The real universe. That's the present moment. The past is no good to us. The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real--the here-and-now. Seize the ...”

“It was probably no accident that it was the cripple Hephaestus who made ingenious machines; a normal man didn't have to hoist or jack himself over hindrances by means of cranks, chains and metal pa...”

“The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.”

“Emancipation resulting in madness. Unlimited freedom to choose and play a tremendous variety of roles with a lot of coarse energy.”

“God may save all, but human rescue is only for a few.”

“Many common lies and hypocrisies are like that, just out of the harmony of the moment.”

“Whenever I write a dramatic poem I can't understand why the characters should ever want to be anything but poets themselves.”

“Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.”

“When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.”

“What is art but a way of seeing?”

“The sun was shut up in a cold bottle.”

“A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.”