Quotes by Philip Roth

Philip Roth

Philip Roth

American Novelist

Lived from: 1933 - 2018

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 19 march 1933 Died: 22 may 2018

  • The danger with hatred is, once you start in on it, you get a hundred times more than you bargained for. Once you start, you can't stop.
  • There’s no remaking reality... Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There’s no other way.
  • I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there's a paragraph that's alive.
  • Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.
  • You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.
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  • A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die!
    ― Philip Roth
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  • Each book starts from ashes.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • Everyone becomes a part of history whether they like it or not and whether they know it or not.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • Everything dictated silence and self-control but I couldn't restrain myself and spoke my mind.
    Operation Shylock: A Confession (1993)
    ― Philip Roth
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  • He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.
    American Pastoral
    ― Philip Roth
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  • How far back must we go to discover the beginning of trouble?
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I am the Raskolnikov of jerking off – the sticky evidence is everywhere!
    Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.
    Exit Ghost (2007)
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I know I'm not going to write as well as I used to. I no longer have the stamina to endure the frustration. Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there's a paragraph that's alive.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • 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 they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.
    ― Philip Roth
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  • I'm an Obama supporter. And if you're an Obama supporter that means you had a hard time during the Bush years.
    ― Philip Roth
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What are the most famous quotes from Philip Roth?

The two most famous quotes from Philip Roth are:

  • "A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple."
  • "A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die!"

When did Philip Roth live?

Philip Roth was born in 1933 and died in the year 2018.