Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them--at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them. Philip Roth More Quotes by Philip Roth More Quotes From Philip Roth When he [Joe Lewis] was asked upon his retirement about his long career, Joe sweetly summed it up in just ten words. 'I did the best I could with what I had'. Philip Roth Unless one is inordinately fond of subordination, one is always at war. Philip Roth subordination affection war There were many hours when I never quite know how I'd gotten there or why I stayed. Philip Roth library never-quit hours Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself Philip Roth daughter loyalty intelligent A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple. Philip Roth army glasses home What I have in mind when I start to write could fit inside an acorn-an acorn, moreover, that rarely if ever grows into an oak. Write fiction and you relinquish reason. You start with an acorn and you end up with a mackerel. Philip Roth acorns mind writing Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when. Philip Roth illness dying death He was no more, freed from being, entering into nowhere without even knowing it. Just as he'd feared from the start. Philip Roth entering knowing One either imposes one's ideas or one is imposed on. Philip Roth ideas When he is sick, every man wants his mother. Philip Roth sick mother men --nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others Philip Roth vanity fool fate How can one say, 'No, this isn't a part of life,' since it always is? The contaminant of sex, the redeeming corruption that de-idealizes the species and keeps us everlastingly mindful of the matter we are. Philip Roth corruption matter sex The best readers come to fiction to be free of ... all that isn't fiction. Philip Roth reader fiction The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions; the trick to living alone up here, away from all agitating entanglements, allurements, and expectations, apart especially from one's own intensity, is to organize the silence, to think of its mountaintop plenitude as capital, silence as wealth exponentially increasing. The encircling silence as your chosen source of advantage and your only intimate. Philip Roth pain people thinking Nothing lasts and yet nothing passes either, and nothing passes just because nothing lasts. Philip Roth philosophical lasts For someone whose roots in America were strong but only inches deep, and who had no experience, such as a Catholic child might, of an awesome hierarchy that was real and felt, baseball was a kind of secular church that reached into every class and region of the nation and bound millions upon millions of us together in common concerns, loyalties, rituals, enthusiasms, and antagonisms. Baseball made me understand what patriotism was about, at its best. Philip Roth loyalty strong baseball Oh, to be a center fielder, a center fielder- and nothing more Philip Roth center-fielders You take off your clothes and you're in bed with somebody, and that is indeed where whatever you've concealed, your particularity, whatever it may be, however encrypted, is going to be found out, and that's what all the shyness is all about and what everybody fears. Philip Roth clothes bed may A writer has to be driven crazy to help him to see. A writer needs his poisons. Philip Roth crazy poison needs People were standing up everywhere shouting, "This is me! This is me!" Every time you looked at them they stood up and told you who they were, and the truth of it was that they had no more idea who or what they were than he had. They believed their flashing signs, too. They ought to be standing up and shouting, "This isn't me! This isn't me!" They would if they had any decency. "This isn't me!" Then you might know how to proceed through the flashing bullshit of this world. Philip Roth bullshit people ideas
