Saul Bellow Quotes

“A man is only as good as what he loves.”

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

“A plan relieves you of the torment of choice.”

“A writer is a reader moved to emulation.”

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

“I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists.”

“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.”

“I love solitude but I prize it most when company is available.”

“I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you.”

“In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too.”

“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.”

“Life, said Samuel Butler, is like giving a concert on the violin while learning to play the instrument—that, friends, is real wisdom.”

“One thought-murder a day keeps the psychiatrist away.”

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

“People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.”

“She was what we used to call a suicide blonde-- dyed by her own hand.”

“We are always looking for the book it is necessary to read next.”

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

“Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I'd be happy to read them.”

“You can know a man by his devils and the way he gives hurts.”

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

“I am a true adorer of life, and if I can't reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation.”

“Society is what beats me. Alone I can be pretty good, but let me go among people and there’s the devil to pay.”

“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 don't know the meaning of true love if you think it can be deliberately selected. You just love, that's all. A natural force, irresistible.”

“Every treasure is guarded by dragons. That's how you can tell it's valuable.”

“In every community there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don't mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably the most dangerous people seek the power. While in the parlors of indignation the right-thinking citizen brings his heart to a boil.”

“It is wrong to turn a man (a subject) into a thing (an object). By
means of spiritual dialogue, the I-It relationship becomes an I-Thou
relationship. God comes and goes in man's soul. And men come and go in each other's souls. Sometimes they come and go in each other's beds, too.”

“It would not be practical for her to hate herself. Luckily, God sends a substitute, a husband.”

“Live or die, but don't poison everything.”