574 Quotes by Saul Bellow

I still had the craving that I had given in to all summer long when I had lived on books, to have the reach to grasp both ends of the frame and turn the big image-taking glass to any scene of the world.

Again! It was like the question asked by Tennyson about the flower in the crannied wall. That is, to answer it might involve the history of the universe.

California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn’t really need. You can quote me on that.

The earth is a huge ball which nothing holds up in space except its own motion and magnetism, and we conscious things who occupy it believe we have to move too, in our own space. We can’t allow ourselves to lie down and not to do our share and imitate the greater entity.

It’s usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart.

To know how it feels to be a seaweed you have to get in the water.

Her hips were long and narrow, her bust was large, and she wore close-fitting skirts and sweaters and high heels that gave a tight arch of impatience to the muscles of her calves; her step was small and pretty and her laughter violent, total, and critical.

When I didn’t argue he was satisfied he had persuaded me, and was not the first to make that mistake.

De Tocqueville considered the impulse toward well-being as one of the strongest impulses of a democratic society. He can’t be blamed for underestimating the destructive powers generated by this same impulse.