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" Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life. "
Philip Roth
My Life
Die
Writing
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" For all I know, I am beginning with the ending. My page one can wind up a year later as page two hundred, if it's still even around. "
Philip Roth
I Am
Beginning
Ending
" The novelist's obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right next word. "
Philip Roth
Moment
Right
Finding
" Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It's just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time. "
Philip Roth
Daily
Writing
You
" Let me tell you about the nap. It's absolutely fantastic. When I was a kid, my father was always trying to tell me how to be a man. And he said - I was maybe nine - he said, 'Philip, whenever you take a nap, take your clothes off and put a blanket over you, and you're going to sleep better.' Well, as with everything, he was right. "
Philip Roth
Me
Father
Clothes
" All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing. "
Philip Roth
Knowing
More
Astonishing
" Nothing keeps its promise. "
Philip Roth
Promise
Keeps
Nothing
" It was my great problem to solve: how to write a book, you know. And after you write one, you have to write another to prove to yourself you can do it again. "
Philip Roth
Yourself
You Can Do It
Great
" I think I write and publish as often as I do because I can't bear being without a book to work on... I don't feel I have this to say or that to say or this story to tell, but I know I want to be occupied with the writing process while I'm living. "
Philip Roth
Know
Writing
Work
" People are unjust to anger - it can be enlivening and a lot of fun. "
Philip Roth
Unjust
Anger
Fun
" Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when. "
Philip Roth
Like
Just
Dying
" My traducers propound my alleged malefaction as though I have spewed venom on women for half a century. But only a madman would go to the trouble of writing 31 books in order to affirm his hatred. "
Philip Roth
Hatred
Trouble
Venom
" The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress. "
Philip Roth
Paved
Road
Hell Is
" Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline. "
Philip Roth
Up
Fear
Much
" Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding? "
Philip Roth
Human
Misunderstanding
Intelligent
" Routinely, when I finish a book, I think 'What will I do? Where will I get an idea?' And a kind of low-level panic sets in. "
Philip Roth
Panic
Will
Think
" Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre. "
Philip Roth
Massacre
Battle
Age
" I do the same kind of rewriting that I do in the shorts that I do in long books - and that is a lot. The book really comes to life in the rewriting. "
Philip Roth
Books
Book
Same
" 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
Writer
Live
You
" You write differently in each book. It may appear to be similar to readers, but you're a different writer in each book because you haven't approached that subject before. And every subject brings out a different prose strain in you. Fundamentally, yes, you're contained as one writer. But you have various voices. Like a good actor. "
Philip Roth
Like
You
Book
" I'm not good at finding 'encouraging' features in American culture. I doubt that aesthetic literacy has much of a future here. "
Philip Roth
American
Finding
Future
" I've stopped reading fiction. I don't read it at all. I read other things: history, biography. I don't have the same interest in fiction that I once did. "
Philip Roth
History
Reading
Interest
" I said the screen will kill the reader, and it has: the movie screen in the beginning, the television screen, and now the coup de grace, the computer screen. "
Philip Roth
Grace
Said
Television
" As for the kind of writer I am? I am who I don't pretend to be. "
Philip Roth
Pretend
I Am
Am
" I'm not angry; I write about angry characters. When I'm doing that, I'm happy. Just like when I'm writing about Mickey Sabbath being lustful, I'm not feeling lustful; I'm happy. "
Philip Roth
Doing
Feeling
Writing
" I rarely, if ever, had another book in mind while I was writing the previous book. Each book starts from ashes, really. "
Philip Roth
Ashes
Really
Mind
" Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts. "
Philip Roth
Power
Beauty
Belief
" I work all day, morning and afternoon, just about every day. If I sit there like that for two or three years, at the end I have a book. "
Philip Roth
Every Day
End
Day
" Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive. "
Philip Roth
Life
Just
Alive
" Unless one is inordinately fond of subordination, one is always at war. "
Philip Roth
Inordinately
Always
Fond
" A writer has to be driven crazy to help him to see. A writer needs his poisons. "
Philip Roth
Driven
Writer
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