574 Quotes by Saul Bellow

With his friends, an egotist. With love, lazy. With brightness, dull. With power, passive. With his own soul, evasive.

I guess nothing restrains people from demanding ideal conditions. Very little restrains them from anything.

If a man disliked you, he would dislike you for all the reasons he could think of.

That’s swell. That’s what I call answering like a man. When is your birthday?” “In January.” “I’d have sworn to it. So is mine. I believe the highest types are born in January. It’s barometric – you can look it up in Ellsworth Huntington. The parents make love in spring when the organism is healthiest and then the best specimens are conceived. If you want children you should plan to knock up your dear one in that season. Ancient wisdom is right. Now science comes lately and finds it out.

But i am a prisoner of perception, a compulsory witness.

Yes, there are good reasons for revulsion and fear. But revulsion and fear impair judgment. Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.

Americans find it hard to believe that foreigners are unalterably foreign, for they have seen generations of immigrants who became Americans. But old cultures are impermeable and exclusive – none more so than the French.

History is the history of cruelty, not love, as soft men think.

Oh yes, I got up on my hindlegs like an orator and sounded off to everyone.