Saul Bellow

"It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart."

"Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is."

"A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. It tells us that for every human being there is a diversity of existences, th…"

"I think that New York is not the cultural center of America, but the business and administrative center of American culture."

"What is imposed on us by birth and environment is what we are called upon to overcome."

"There's something that remains barbarous in educated people, and lately I've more and more had the feeling that we are nonwondering primitives. And why is it that we no longer marvel at these technolo…"

"As a scholar intends to enlighten us, and as a writer he has learned from Aristophanes and other models that enlightenment should also be enjoyable. To me, this is not the book of a professor, but tha…"

"The late philosopher Morris R. Cohen of CCNY was asked by a student in the metaphysics course, “Professor Cohen, how do I know that I exist?” The keen old prof replied, “And who is asking?"