574 Quotes by Saul Bellow

A person can become tired of looking himself over and trying to fix himself up. You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

How should I know why! I didn’t invent human beings, Iggy.

Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn’t know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you’re picking up the pieces – down to the last glassy splinter.

I mean you have been disappointed in love, but don’t you know how many things there are to be disappointed in besides love? You are lucky to be still disappointed in love. Later it may be even more terrible.

Creative is nature. Rapid. Lavish. Inspirational. It shapes leaves. It rolls the waters of the earth. Man is the chief of this. All creations are his just inheritance.

Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I’d be happy to read them.

I think you ought to write, in bed, and make use of your unhappiness. I do it. Many do. One should cook and eat one’s misery. Chain it like a dog. Harness like Niagara Falls to generate light and supply voltage for electric chairs.

If I’m out of my mind, it’s all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.

I want to tell you, don’t marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it’s adultery.