To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth. Ivory is the soap that floats; Rice Krispies the breakfast cereal that goes snap-crackle-pop; Philip Roth the Jew who masturbates with a piece of liver.
Interpretation
Celebrity and branding are intertwined, with identity reduced to a simple concept.
In this quote, Philip Roth suggests that becoming a celebrity transforms a person into a brand, akin to well-known products. He uses humorous examples to illustrate how identities can be summarized in trivial or superficial ways, highlighting the absurdity of reducing a person's entire essence to a commercial label.
In practice
In a discussion on the nature of fame in a literature class.
American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
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.
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.
It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.
That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for your own freedom. To lose your inhibition to delve deep into your memory and experiences and life and then to find the prose that will persuade the reader.
Satan can make men dance upon the brink of hell as though they were on the verge of heaven.
It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.
Our collective freedom... depends on our ability to defend the rights of others.
We're taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they're of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration.
As I lay on my back in bed staring up at the blank, white ceiling the stillness seemed to grow bigger and bigger until I felt my eardrums would burst with it.
Necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything.
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