Quotes from Philip Roth

When Heshie was killed in the war, the only thing people could think to say to my Aunt Clara and my Uncle Hymie, to somehow mitigate the horror, to somehow console them in their grief, was, "At least he didn't leave you with a shikse wife. At least he didn't leave you with goyische children." End of Heshie and his story.

La mia mente divaga, - mi disse, un po' come se io fossi un medico passato di lí per informarmi sui suoi strani e inquietanti nuovi sintomi. - Arrivato in fondo alla pagina cerco di riassumere ciò che ho letto, e la mia mente è vuota: sono rimasto seduto in poltrona senza far niente. Certo, ho sempre letto i libri con la penna in mano, ma ora scopro che se non lo faccio, anche quando leggo una rivista, la mia attenzione non resta concentrata su quello che ho davanti a me.

El sexo es lo que desordena nuestras vidas normalmente ordenadas.

pas la peine de creuser bien loin avec ces gens là, ils portent leur vieil inconscient en bandoulière

Mishima. Rothko. Hemingway. Berryman. Koestler. Pavese. Kosinski. Arshile Gorky. Primo Levi. Hart Crane. Walter Benjamin. Peerless bunch. Nothing dishonorable signing on there.

If I know anything about periodontists, she's thought of strangling you more than once. In your sleep.

Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear. Of course no childhood is without its terrors, yet I wonder if I would have been a less frightened boy if Lindbergh hadn't been president or if I hadn't been the offspring of Jews.

imaginación, y mi tarea en cuanto artista no consistía en desarrollar a mi imaginación, sino en contenerla, lo cual ya entonces me pareció imposible, porque todo era tan increíble que

The deeper reasonability of seeking danger is that there is, in any event, no escaping it.

Her ubiquity and his constipation, my mother flying in through the bedroom window, my father reading the evening paper with a suppository up his ass . . . these, Doctor, are the earliest impressions I have of my parents, of their attributes and secrets.

But he was in his fifties and there I always question how hard can they get. With a younger guy you know it's an easier thing. With an older one you don't know.

pero el placer estriba en no poseer a la persona. El placer es esto. Tener a otro contendiente en la habitación contigo.

You're somebody who has banished all superfluous sentiments from his life. No asinine longings to be home again. No patience for the nonessential. Only time for what's indispensable.

víctima, y a las víctimas trato de comprender.

The law of living: fluctuation. For every thought a counter-thought, for every urge a counterurge. No wonder you either go crazy and die or decide to disappear.

This is aging, pure and simple, the self-destroying hilarity of the last roller coaster.

All the great thoughts he had not reached were beyond enumeration; there was no bottom to what he did not have to say about the meaning of his life.

Really, can they be this blind? Can people be so abysmally stupid and live?

La vida es un breve periodo de tiempo durante el que estamos vivos.

the me who's not me encamped boldly in Jewish Jerusalem while I go underground with the Arabs.

self-laceration is never more than a memory away

Drenka Balich's perfectionism on the job was not her only immoderate inclination.

Never gave anybody any trouble. A bit of a loner, but always with a kind word for everyone.

he spoke from ignorance then, and admits as much today.