Writer Quotes by Philip Roth

“Memoirs lie, but fiction tells the truth.”

— Philip Roth

The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

— Philip Roth

Each book starts from ashes.

— Philip Roth

“There are no reasons. She is obliged to be as she is. We all are. Reasons are in books.”

— Philip Roth

The best readers come to fiction to be free of ... all that isn't fiction.

— Philip Roth

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.

— Philip Roth

I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there's a paragraph that's alive.

— Philip Roth

Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.

— Philip Roth

I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

— Philip Roth

When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.

— Philip Roth

A writer has to be driven crazy to help him to see. A writer needs his poisons.

— Philip Roth

“Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws…

— Philip Roth

“Perhaps,' I wearily suggest, 'reading is the opiate of the educated classes.' 'Is it? Are you thinking of becoming a flower child?'…

— Philip Roth

Each book starts from ashes really. I don't feel that I have this to say or that to say or this story…

— Philip Roth

I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and…

— Philip Roth

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure…

— Philip Roth

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the…

— Philip Roth

When I was first in Czechoslovakia, it occurred to me that I work in a society where as a writer everything goes…

— Philip Roth

“(Writing is) the transformation, through an elaborate impersonation, of a personal emergency into a public act (in both senses of that word).”

— Philip Roth

“I know I’m not going to write as well as I used to. I no longer have the stamina to endure the…

— Philip Roth

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.…

— Philip Roth

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

Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50…

— Philip Roth

“Zuckerman, sucker though he was for seriousness, was still not going to be drawn into a discussion about agents and editors. If…

— Philip Roth

I haven't written a word of fiction since 2009. I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did and…

— Philip Roth

“Though frankly… Tarnapol, as he is called, is beginning to seem as imaginary as my Zuckermans anyway, or at least as detached…

— Philip Roth

When I have a first draft, I have a floor under my feet that I can walk on. Then, especially with the…

— Philip Roth

“This is the plot up to the moment when the writer leaves the woman still dolefully enmeshed in it, and, suitcase in…

— Philip Roth

When you decide 'to be a writer,' you don't have the faintest idea of what the work is like. When you begin,…

— Philip Roth

You asked if I thought my fiction had changed anything in the culture and the answer is no. Sure, there's been some…

— Philip Roth

“I would browse for half an hour or so in the secondhand bookstores in the neighborhood. Owning my own 'library' was my only…

— Philip Roth

“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

“You asked if I thought my fiction had changed anything in the culture and the answer is no. Sure, there's been some…

— Philip Roth

We live in an age in which the imagination of the novelist is helpless against what he knows he is going to…

— Philip Roth

I know I'm not going to write as well as I used to. I no longer have the stamina to endure the…

— Philip Roth

Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. the illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws…

— Philip Roth

A life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your…

— Philip Roth

“Don't judge it. Just write it. Don't judge it. It's not for you to judge it. Interview in Esquire Magazine 10/10”

— Philip Roth

“The operating room turns you into somebody who's never wrong. Much like writing." "Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. The…

— Philip Roth

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence…

— Philip Roth