The deepest part of ourselves...

The following quotes from Saul Bellow are taken from this article:

'A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.'

'A man is only as good as what he loves.'

'Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.'

'A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.'

'In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.'

'There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.
Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.'

Christopher Hitchens also wrote this article which includes this great quote from Saul Bellow's Herzog (1964) (which appear on the epigraph page of Ian McEwan's 'Saturday'. Mcewan also wrote this about Bellow) :

For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a
century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organised
power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanisation.
After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and
devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the
self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would
not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own
great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have
discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do...

Saul Bellow, who died recently.

Quotes,Saul Bellow,books,philosophy