Quotes from Philip Roth

One last look at Athena, and then let the disgrace be complete.

In human society, thinking's the greatest transgression of all.

No guile. No artifice. No mischief. All that he had eliminated to achieve his perfection. No striving, no ambivalence, no doubleness—just the style, the natural physical refinement of a star.

Around three A.M., I left my bed and went to my desk, my head vibrant with the static of unelaborated thought.

Los recuerdos del pasado no son recuerdos de los hechos, sino recuerdos de tu imaginación de los hechos

Could he continue to maintain his sanity that long? He didn't know. That's why he was devouring two or three books a day - to remove himself every minute that he possibly could from the madness of this life.

but all that rose to the surface was more surface.

But now, except for a county in Alabama where the citizens voted no on a referendum, I believe the poor goy cannot elude the bagel anywhere in America.

It's not your fault that you don't know what Gentiles think when they read something like this.

Cuando esto haya terminado ese joven lamentará no sólo haberse metido en política, sino también aprendido a volar— dijo Roosevelt cuando se enteró que había sido nombrado como candidato republicano a las próximas elecciones en las que el sería el candidato demócrata

That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that—well, lucky you.

Nobody beloved gets out alive.

They don't know about art. Maybe I don't know about art myself. Maybe none of our family does, not the way that you do. But that's my point. People don't read art—they read about people.

Y la elección de Lindbergh me había dejado muy claro que el despliegue de lo imprevisto estaba en todas partes. Lo impecablemente imprevisto, que había dado un vuelco erróneo, era lo que en la escuela estudiábamos como "historia", una historia inocua donde todo lo inesperado en su época está registrado en la página como inevitable. El terror de lo imprevisto es lo que oculta la ciencia de la historia, que transforma el desaire en épica.

Here, of course, in New York, you New Yorkers love the Japanese because they brought you raw fish.

I wonder if you fully understand just how very little love there is in this world for Jewish people. I don't mean in Germany, either, under the Nazis. I mean in run-of-the-mill Americans, Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guy, who otherwise you and I consider perfectly harmless. Nathan, it is there. I guarantee you it is there. I know it is there. I have seen

Probablemente no habría sido mucho peor (tal vez habría sido mucho mejor) buscar consuelo en las dos monjas del autobuses la avenida Lyons en lugar de en una persona que se delataba en los placeres de las corrupciones habituales e insignificantes que proliferan allí donde la gente compite incluso por las más mínimas ventajas del rango.

Wifeless, mistressless, penniless, vocationless, homeless . . . and now, to top things off, on the run.

Chekhov: 'The important thing is to find the right smile.

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong.

What is the archetypal Bible story? A story of betrayal. Of treachery. It's just one deception after another.

La poseuse de bombe présumée est décrite comme intelligente et douée mais d'un caractère têtu.

if there weren't war, lunacy, perversity, sickness, imbecility, suicide, and death, chances were he'd be in a lot better shape.

The mad desire to obliterate all! The mad desire to save all!