Quotes from Saul Bellow

I know how long—endless—people's stories are when they have grievances. And how tedious for everyone.

Anyone who wants to govern the country, has to entertain it.

You must take your chance on what you are. And you can't sit still. I know this double poser, that if you make a move you may lose but if you sit still you will decay. But what will you lose? You will not invent better than God or nature or turn yourself into the man who lacks no gift or development before you make the move. This is not given to us.

All who live are in despair.(?) And that is the sickness unto death.(?) It is that a man refuses to be what he is.(?)

Is it an easier farewell for Dad if we don't part friends?

Strict and literal truthfulness was a trivial game and might even be a disagreeable neurotic affliction.

me?utim i ovo naše sadašnje razdoblje nestaje, i to možda brže od svih ostalih.

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness that characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

Poštovani prof. dr. Heideggeru, zanimalo bi me šta Vi mislite pod izrazom 'utapanje u svakidašnjicu'. Kad je došlo do tog utapanja? Gdje ste Vi stajali kad se to dogodilo?

They did not know how much he cared for them. No. It hurt him greatly and he blamed Margaret for turning them against him. She wanted to ruin him, while she wore the mask of kindness.

Margaret would tell him he did not really want a divorce; he was afraid of it. He cried, "Take everything I've got, Margaret. Let me go to Reno. Don't you want to marry again?" No. She went out with other men, but took his money. She lived in order to punish him.

No court would have awarded her the amounts he paid.

But such vexations always filled me with energy as well. And if I later became such a formidable mass of credentials it was because I put such slights to good use. I avenged myself by making progress.

Didn't Margaret know that he was nearly at the end of his rope? Of course. Her instinct told her that this was her opportunity, and she was giving him the works.

It is better to die what you are than to live a stranger forever

Now I was too old to be a pupil, and Ravelstein didn't believe in adult education. It was far too late for me to Platonize. And what people called culture was nothing but a fancier term for their ignorance.

Umotajmo se sada svi u mrtva?ke pokrove i krenimo na Washington i Moskvu. Polegnimo, muškarci, žene i djeco, i uzviknimo: - Neka se život nastavi - možda ga ne zaslužujemo, ali neka se nastavi!

To God he jotted several lines. How my mind has struggled to make coherent sense. I have not been too good at it. But have desired to do your unknowable will, taking it, and you, without symbols. Everything of intensest significance. Especially if divested of me.

Mind you, I'm a great admirer of our species. I stand in awe of the genius of the race. But a large part of this genius is devoted to lying and seeming what you are not.

U svakoj zajednici postoji vrsta ljudi koja je neobi?no opasna za druge ?lanove zajednice. Ne mislim na kriminalce. Za njih imamo kaznene sankcije. Mislim na vo?e. Najopasniji ljudi bez iznimke idu za vlaš?u. Dok pozitivnom gra?aninu uskipljuje srce u salonima indignacije. Gospodine uredni?e, za nas je neizbježno da budemo roblje onima koji posjeduju mo? da nas unište.

I'm sure I've got that part of the Aristophanic sex-myth straight. With the help of Eros we go on, each of us, looking for his missing half. Ravelstein was in real earnest about this quest, driven by longing. Not everyone feels that longing, or acknowledges it if he does feel it. In literature Antony and Cleopatra had it, Romeo and Juliet had it. Closer to our own time Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary had it, Stendhal's Madame de Rênal in her simplicity and innocence had

Free personalities getting no help from either deaf heaven or neutral earth were facing mortally dangerous choices which would determine the future of civilization.

Oh, my body, my body! Why have we never really got together as friends? I have loaded it with my vices, like a raft, like a barge.

I read the best of literature, science and philosophy