Quotes from Saul Bellow

She was what we used to call a suicide blond — dyed by her own hand.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance.

As though to be Jewish weren't trouble enough, the poor woman was German, too.

The body, she says, is subject to the forces of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.

There's almost nothing personal in success. Success is always money's own success.

New York makes one think of the collapse of civilization, about Sodom and Gomorrah, the end of the world. The end wouldn't come as a surprise here. Many people already bank on it.

There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it it got even stronger…. It never said a thing except I want, I want, I want!

Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.

Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart.

One thought-murder a day keeps the psychiatrist away.

Live or die, but don't poison everything.

Boredom is the conviction that you can't change ... the shriek of unused capacities.

Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.

A man is only as good as what he loves.

We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.

You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which 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.

A writer is a reader moved to emulation.

Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.