Saul Bellow

A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth." But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.

Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.

You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

Unfortunately for the betterment of mankind it is not always the fair-minded who are in the right.

For God's sake,' the dog is saying, 'open the universe a little more!

The challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up. The danger is that you may emerge from the process as a not-entirely-human creature. (Referenced in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young)

One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance and this fantasy (?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment.

Boredom is the conviction that you can't change ... the shriek of unused capacities.

He believed that he must, that he could and would recover the good things, the happy things, the easy tranquil things of life. He had made mistakes, but he could overlook these. He had been a fool, but that could be forgiven. The time wasted--must be relinquished. What else could one do about it? Things were too complex, but they might be reduced to simplicity again. Recovery was possible.

The hour that burst the spirit's sleep.

Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death.