When you decide 'to be a writer,' you don't have the faintest idea of what the work is like. When you begin, you write spontaneously out of your limited experience of both the unwritten world and the written world. You're full of naïve exuberance. 'I am a writer!' Rather like the excitement of 'I have a lover!' But working at it nearly every day for fifty years whether it is being the writer or being the lover turns out to be an extremely taxing job and hardly the pleasantest of human activities.
He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense. - Philip Roth
He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.
- Philip Roth
When he [Joe Lewis] was asked upon his retirement about his long career, Joe sweetly summed it up in just ten words. 'I did the best I could with wha… - Philip Roth
When he [Joe Lewis] was asked upon his retirement about his long career, Joe sweetly summed it up in just ten words. 'I did the best I could with wha…
I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunc… - 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 and I turn it around again. Then I have lunc…
You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you. - Philip Roth
You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.
All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing. - Philip Roth
All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.
Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre. - Philip Roth
Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.
Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up. - Philip Roth
Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up.
Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defe… - Philip Roth
Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defe…
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. - Philip Roth
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.
Login to join the discussion
Login to join the discussion