And as he spoke, I was thinking, 'the kind of stories that people turn life into, the kind of lives people turn… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
The book can't compete with the screen. It couldn't compete beginning with the movie screen. It couldn't compete with the television screen… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
I was gushing and I knew it. I surprised myself with my eagerness to please, felt myself saying too much, explaining too… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
a father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
I think you're a wonder. You're beautiful. You're mature. You are, I admit, vastly more experienced than I am. That's what threw… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls?… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
What I would really love to happen to me would be if I came upon an idea that would keep me busy… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
“The old intergenerational give-and-take of the country-that-used-to-be, when everyone knew his role and took the rules dead seriously, the acculturating back-and-forth that all of… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
You be greater than your feelings. I don't demand this of you - life does. Otherwise you'll be washed away by feelings. You'll be… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
The only way to have a funeral is to invite everyone who ever knew the person and just wait for the accident to happen-somebody… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth. Ivory is the soap that… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
“There are no reasons. She is obliged to be as she is. We all are. Reasons are in books.” — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
“As far as I can see there is no conquering or exorcising the past with words - words born either of imagination or forthrightness.” — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
“What is astonishing is that we, who had no idea how anything was going to turn out, now know exactly what happened.” — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
“Good Christ, a Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!” — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
I am the Raskolnikov of jerking off – the sticky evidence is everywhere! — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
“Better for real things to be uncontrollable, better for one's life to be undecipherable and intellectually impenetrable than to attempt to make casual sense… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
