574 Quotes by Saul Bellow

I am not an ornithologist—I am a bird.

Strict and literal truthfulness was a trivial game and might even be a disagreeable neurotic affliction.

As the wicked flee when none pursueth, so does the middle-class wrestle when none contendeth. They cried out for freedom, it came down on them in a flood. Nothing remains but a few floating timbers of psychotherapy.

Even if I am not the honestest type in the world I don't want to lie more than is average.

Many common lies and hypocrisies are like that, just out of the harmony of the moment.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

Maybe America didn't need art and inner miracles. It had so many outer ones. The USA was a big operation, very big. The more it, the less we.

What this means is not a single Tower of Babel plotted in common, but hundreds of thousands of separate beginnings, the length and breadth of America. Energetic people who build against pains and uncertainties, as weaker ones merely hope against them.

A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.