Saul Bellow Quotes - Page 6

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• You have one of two choices. Either you can panic and start making frantic attempts to reform under the glare of these awful critical eyes, or you can just say, "The hell with you! I know what I'm doing. If you don't yet, it's because you haven't given me an attentive reading.

  Saul Bellow

  Reading, Eye, Two

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• Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it - they should, because they put it all in beforehand.

  Saul Bellow

  Definitions, Conscious, Analysts

  Saul Bellow (2016). “The Dean's December”, p.245, Odyssey Editions

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• I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.

  Saul Bellow

  Character, Fate, Men

  1953 The Adventures of Augie March.

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• But a man's character is his fate... and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.

  Saul Bellow

  Character, Fate, Men

  Saul Bellow (2003). “Novels, 1944-1953”

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• With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you've fallen into good hands - someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.

  Saul Bellow

  Hands, Feelings, Novelists

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• I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally.

  Saul Bellow

  Men, Long, Giving

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• The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether.

  Saul Bellow

  Ideas, Soul, Trying

  Foreword to "The Closing of the American Mind" by Allan Bloom, pp. 16-17, 1987.

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• How should I know why! I didn't invent human beings, Iggy.

  Saul Bellow

  Should, Humans, Knows

  Saul Bellow (2012). “The Adventures of Augie March”, p.515, Penguin UK

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• There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.

  Saul Bellow

  Who We Are, Life Is, Longing

  Saul Bellow (2015). “There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction”, p.216, Penguin

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• "What do women want?" "They eat green salad and drink human blood."

  Saul Bellow

  Blood, Green, Want

  "Conversations with Saul Bellow".

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• The challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up. The danger is that you may emerge from the process as a not-entirely-human creature. (Referenced in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young)

  Saul Bellow

  People, Challenges, Toby

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• I don't know exactly how it's done. I let it alone a good deal.

  Saul Bellow

  Done, Crafts, Deals

  Saul Bellow, Gloria L. Cronin, Ben Siegel (1994). “Conversations with Saul Bellow”, p.65, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• One must bear in mind the odd angle or slant that the rays of love have to take in order to reach a heart like mine.

  Saul Bellow

  Heart, Order, Mind

  Saul Bellow (2008). “Humboldt's Gift”, Penguin Classics

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• Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.

  Saul Bellow

  Oppression, Accuracy, Suppression

  The Adventures of Augie March ch. 1 (1953)

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• A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. It tells us that for every human being there is a diversity of existences, that the single existence is itself an illusion in part, that these many existences signify something, tend to something, fulfill something; it promises us meaning, harmony, and even justice.

  Saul Bellow

  Justice, Diversity, Promise

  1976 Nobel prize lecture, Stockholm,12 Dec.

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• But she's a nut, and nuts win.

  Saul Bellow

  Winning, Nuts

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Viking Adult

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• A good novel is worth more then the best scientific study.

  Saul Bellow

  Writing, Study, Novel

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• Each man has his own batch of poems.

  Saul Bellow

  Men, Poetry

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Viking Adult

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• The more realistic you are the more you threaten the grounds of your own art.

  Saul Bellow

  Art, Realistic

  Saul Bellow, Gloria L. Cronin, Ben Siegel (1994). “Conversations with Saul Bellow”, p.69, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries.

  Saul Bellow

  Love, Country, Expressing Love

  "Bellow in his own words". www.theguardian.com. April 6, 2005.

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

  Saul Bellow

  Husband, Hate, Substitutes

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Viking Adult

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• It is sometimes necessary to repeat what all know. All mapmakers should place the Mississippi in the same location and avoid originality.

  Saul Bellow

  Location, Originality, Sometimes

  SAUL BELLOW (1971). “MR. SAMMLER'S PLANET”

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• In the history of the world many souls have been, are, and will be, and with a little reflection this is marvelous and not depressing. Many jerks are made gloomy about it, for they think quantity buries them alive. That's just crazy. Numbers are very dangerous, but the main thing about them is that they humble your pride. And that's good.

  Saul Bellow

  Depressing, Crazy, Humble

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• I am deeply moved when I write. I get turned on by it. I've never used any drugs for stimulation. I don't use words loosely. When I'm working and the right word comes, there is an answering resonance within me. There is also a hardness of intention that goes with it. There is no idleness in it.

  Saul Bellow

  Writing, Drug, Use

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• 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.

  Saul Bellow

  Passion, Heart, Voice

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