Saul Bellow Quotes

Most popular Saul Bellow Quotes

The shadow in the garden. - Saul Bellow quote.
The shadow in the garden.
— Saul Bellow in The New Yorker

biography

Fiction is the higher autobiography. - Saul Bellow quote.
Fiction is the higher autobiography.
— Saul Bellow in The New York Times

fiction autobiography

A writer is a reader moved to emulation. - Saul Bellow quote.
A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
— Saul Bellow Connections: A Rhetoric/Short Prose Reader

reading writers

Unexpected intrusions of beauty. That is what life is. - Saul Bellow quote.
Unexpected intrusions of beauty. That is what life is.
— Saul Bellow Herzog

beauty

She was what we used to call a suicide blonde—dyed by her own hand. - Saul Bellow quote.
She was what we used to call a suicide blonde—dyed by her own hand.
— Saul Bellow

blondes

In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. - Saul Bellow quote.
In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul.
— Saul Bellow The Closing of the American Mind

confusion

Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity. - Saul Bellow quote.
Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.
— Saul Bellow Herzog

stupidity

I love solitude, but I prize it most when plenty of company is available. - Saul Bellow quote.
I love solitude, but I prize it most when plenty of company is available.
— Saul Bellow Saul Bellow: Letters

solitude

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. - Saul Bellow quote.
You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
— Saul Bellow
Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door. - Saul Bellow quote.
Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
— Saul Bellow Mr. Sammler’s Planet

memory

All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac. - Saul Bellow quote.
All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac.
— Saul Bellow

writers

Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees. - Saul Bellow quote.
Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
— Saul Bellow Dangling Man

alternatives

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is great. - Saul Bellow quote.
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is great.
— Saul Bellow To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account

ignorance illusion

You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half. - Saul Bellow quote.
You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
— Saul Bellow Seize the Day

mistakes

Boredom...is also the shriek of unused capacities, the doom of serving no great end or design, or contributing to no master force. - Saul Bellow quote.
Boredom...is also the shriek of unused capacities, the doom of serving no great end or design, or contributing to no master force.
— Saul Bellow The Adventures of Augie March

boredom

It just came to me. The great pleasure of the book was that it came so easily. All I had to do was be there with buckets to catch it. - Saul Bellow quote.
It just came to me. The great pleasure of the book was that it came so easily. All I had to do was be there with buckets to catch it.
— Saul Bellow The Adventures of Augie March

reading

There are evils, as someone has pointed out, that have the ability to survive identification and go on forever—money, for instance, or war. - Saul Bellow quote.
There are evils, as someone has pointed out, that have the ability to survive identification and go on forever—money, for instance, or war.
— Saul Bellow The Dean’s December

evil

A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth."  But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking. - Saul Bellow quote.
A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth."  But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.
— Saul Bellow Herzog

truth

A writer's life is solitary, often bitter. How pleasant it is to come out of one's room, to fly about the world, make speeches, and cut a swath. - Saul Bellow quote.
A writer's life is solitary, often bitter. How pleasant it is to come out of one's room, to fly about the world, make speeches, and cut a swath.
— Saul Bellow Critical Enquiry

writers

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 quote.
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 Herbert Mitgang

novelists

Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize. - Saul Bellow quote.
Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize.
— Saul Bellow

politicians politics

Psycho-analysis 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 quote.
Psycho-analysis 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 The Dean’s December

subconscious

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. - Saul Bellow quote.
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.
— Saul Bellow

art