World War III will be triggered off not by suppressed nationalists seeking political independence, as happened the first time around when the Serbs at Sarajevo shot the heir to the Austrian throne, but by some semiliterate, whacked-out "loner" who lobs a rocket into a nuclear arsenal in order to impress Brooke Shields.

Philip Roth

Categorized in : Order War Political

The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open.

Philip Roth

love fall thinking

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

Philip Roth

teach worst lessons

All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.

Philip Roth

astonishing knowing knows

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Philip Roth

force telling-the-truth love-you

I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning.

Philip Roth

writing lying thinking

The danger with hatred is, once you start in on it, you get a hundred times more than you bargained for. Once you start, you can't stop.

Philip Roth

hundred hatred danger

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

Philip Roth

massacres battle age

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

Philip Roth

reading noise fiction

You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more.

Philip Roth

given taste enough

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

Philip Roth

sisterhood work writing

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Philip Roth

believe world religion

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

Philip Roth

use writing commitment

My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets — no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!

Philip Roth

bombs ducks communication

There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.

Philip Roth

believe lying people

Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up.

Philip Roth

growing-up worry thinking

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.

Philip Roth

pain secret people

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.

Philip Roth

silence literature mind

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Philip Roth

thrill horror lost

Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.

Philip Roth

lucky would-be people

You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.

Philip Roth

ideology people