“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
“Live or die, but don't poison everything.”
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
“We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.”
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
“When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice”
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
“You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.”
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
“Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.”
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"In every community there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don't mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably the most dangerous people seek the power. While in the parlors of indignation the right-thinking citizen brings his heart to a boil."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too"
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can't open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated."
"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"It seems, after all that there are no nonpeculiar people."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"Our society, like decadent Rome, has turned into an amusement society, with writers chief among the court jesters."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
"The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man's life is not a business."
― Saul Bellow (1915-2005)