Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness are my closest friends. Philip Roth More Quotes by Philip Roth More Quotes From Philip Roth Turned the wrong way around, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied in "History", harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic. Philip Roth pages epic way Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts. Philip Roth audacity literature inspire Let's hope the first comes first. Philip Roth firsts Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding? Philip Roth scales intelligent understanding People are unjust to anger - it can be enlivening and a lot of fun. Philip Roth anger fun people Doctor, I had never had anybody like her in my life, she was the fulfillment of my most lascivious adolescent dreams– but marry her, can she be serious? You see, for all her preening and perfumes, she has a very low opinion of herself, and simultaneously– and here is the source of much of our trouble-a ridiculously high opinion of me. And simultaneously, a very low opinion of me! She is one confused Monkey, and, I'm afraid, not too very bright. Philip Roth doctors confused dream I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out. Philip Roth new-york doe people I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again. Philip Roth turns writing looks You can't write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent. Philip Roth writing reality america We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen - there’s no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark. Philip Roth abuse errors grace Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts. Philip Roth memories facts past The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic. Philip Roth disaster terror epic It's human to have a secret, but it's just as human to reveal it sooner or later. Philip Roth sooner-or-later revelations secret For a pure sense of being tumultuously alive, you can't beat the nasty side of existence. Philip Roth nasty alive sides As for himself, however hateful life was, it was hateful in a home and not in the gutter. Many Americans hated their homes. The number of homeless in America couldn't touch the number of Americans who had homes and families and hated the whole thing. Philip Roth home numbers america We live in an age in which the imagination of the novelist is helpless against what he knows he is going to read in tomorrow's newspaper. Philip Roth novelists imagination age I am the Raskolnikov of jerking off – the sticky evidence is everywhere! Philip Roth raskolnikov sticky evidence And since we don’t just forget things because they don’t matter but also forget things because they matter too much because each of us remembers and forgets in a pattern whose labyrinthine windings are an identification mark no less distinctive than a fingerprintit’s no wonder that the shards of reality one person will cherish as a biography can seem to someone else who, say, happened to have eaten some ten thousand dinners at the very same kitchen table, to be a willful excursion into mythomania Philip Roth kitchen tables reality I was gushing and I knew it. I surprised myself with my eagerness to please, felt myself saying too much, explaining too much, overinvolved and overexcited in the way you are when you're a kid and you think you've found a soul mate in the new boy down the street and you feel yourself drawn by the force of the courtship and so act as you don't normally do and a lot more openly than you may even want to. Philip Roth boys kids thinking How Far back must we go to discover the beginning of trouble? Philip Roth trouble
