Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 March 1933
CountryUnited States of America
book certain guide haul knew life literature rule satisfied taste three
The long haul kind of wearies me, the thought of doing a book for two or three or years; and you have to rule so much else out of your life. I always knew that literature satisfied a taste for considering life in a certain way, but that it wasn't a guide to living.
alive boy die jewish man parents remain until
The Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy and will remain a fifteen-year-old until they die
admission books books-and-reading
It's an admission of the books into perpetuity.
depict observed reckless seemed talked trying
It seemed pretty reckless and vicious. I was just trying to depict the way it was, the way it sounded, what they talked about. This was just what I observed or imagined.
book typewriters feet
When I have a first draft, I have a floor under my feet that I can walk on. And then, especially with the help of the computer, rewriting is so easy to do with the computer, much easier than it used to be with the typewriter. So the books go through numerous drafts.
book rewriting
The book really comes to life in the rewriting.
thinking awful exhibitionism
You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.
book writing thinking
What I would really love to happen to me would be if I came upon an idea that would keep me busy until I die so I wouldn't have to go through the business of thinking up a new book. But I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.
lying believe people
There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
book writing thinking
I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.
fall want setting
You don't want to repeat yourself for one. You don't want to fall into the clichés for another. And you don't want to be licentious really. You want to be descriptive, if you can be. And you're not setting out to arouse anybody.
thinking people stories
And as he spoke, I was thinking, 'the kind of stories that people turn life into, the kind of lives people turn stories into.
home numbers america
As for himself, however hateful life was, it was hateful in a home and not in the gutter. Many Americans hated their homes. The number of homeless in America couldn't touch the number of Americans who had homes and families and hated the whole thing.
book years pages
I work most days and if you work most days and you get at least a page done a day, then at the end of the year you have 365. So the pages accumulate and then I publish the books.