Philip Roth Quotes

“You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.”
― Philip Roth

“All that we don’t know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.”
― Philip Roth

“My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets —no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!”
― Philip Roth

“It's best to give while your hand is still warm.”
― Philip Roth, Everyman

“Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.”
― Philip Roth, The Human Stain

“Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.”
― Philip Roth

“The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong.”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don’t need that question answered.”
― Philip Roth

“You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“You put too much stock in human intelligence, it doesn't annihilate human nature.”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“The pleasure isn't in owning the person. The pleasure is this. Having another contender in the room with you.”
― Philip Roth, The Human Stain

“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