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Quote by Philip Roth

“The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.”

Quote by Philip Roth

Author

Philip Roth (1933-2018) was one of America's most influential contemporary novelists, renowned for his profound explorations of Jewish-American identity, sexuality, politics, and the human condition. His breakthrough work, "Portnoy's Complaint" (1969), became a landmark in American literature. Roth received two National Book Awards and was a multiple-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Over his six-decade career, he published more than 30 books that significantly shaped American fiction. He passed away in New York City on May 22, 2018, at age 85. more

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“I haven't written a word of fiction since 2009. I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did and it's done. There's more to life than writing and publishing fiction. There is another way entirely, amazed as I am to discover it at this late date.”

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“You asked if I thought my fiction had changed anything in the culture and the answer is no. Sure, there's been some scandal, but people are scandalized all the time; it's a way of life for them. It doesn't mean a thing. If you ask if I want my fiction to change anything in the culture, the answer is still no. What I want is to possess my readers while they are reading my book if I can, to possess them in ways that other writers don't. Then let them return, just as they were, to a world where everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt, and control them.”

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Source: Conversations with Philip Roth

“Turned the wrong way around, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied in "History", harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.”

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“The impulse to write a novel comes from a momentary unified vision of life.”

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Book:The Wild Garden: Or, Speaking of Writing

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“People are able to live with only half a heart, to live without real compassion, because they are able to use words that are only forms.”

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Book:Diversity and Depth in Fiction: Selected Critical Writings of Angus Wilson

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“The only way to escape misrepresentation is never to commit oneself to any critical judgement that makes an impact - that is, never to say anything. I still, however think that the best way to promote profitable discussion is to be as clear as possible with oneself about what one sees and judges, to try and establish the essential discriminations in the given field of interest, and to state them as clearly as one can (for disagreement, if necessary).”

“It is well to start by distinguishing the few really great - the major novelists who count in the same way as the major poets, in the sense that they not only change the possibilities of the art for practitioners and readers, but that they are significant in terms of the human awareness they promote; awareness of the possibilities of life.”

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“The "great tradition" does not brook even the possibility of libidinal gratification between the pages as an end in itself, and FR Leavis's "eat up your broccoli" approach to fiction emphasises this junkfood/wholefood dichotomy.”

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“Even to loneliness there is an end, for those who are lonely enough, long enough.”

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“There's this about a farm: when the market's good there's money, and when it's bad there's food.”

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