Philip Roth quote: "Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts."

Undermining experience, embellishing experience, rearranging and enlarging experience into a species...
PHILIP ROTH

A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an arm...
PHILIP ROTH

A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy un...
PHILIP ROTH

Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly whe...
PHILIP ROTH

I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so...
PHILIP ROTH

It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you con...
PHILIP ROTH

Only in America do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, an...
PHILIP ROTH

When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.
PHILIP ROTH

To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth...
PHILIP ROTH

Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is form...
PHILIP ROTH

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I a...
PHILIP ROTH

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.
PHILIP ROTH

Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is for...
PHILIP ROTH

My traducers propound my alleged malefaction as though I have spewed venom on women for half a centu...
PHILIP ROTH

Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness are my closest friends.
PHILIP ROTH

As I see it, my focus has never been on masculine power rampant and triumphant but rather on the ant...
PHILIP ROTH

A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!
PHILIP ROTH

Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the do...
PHILIP ROTH

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to f...
PHILIP ROTH

Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstan...
PHILIP ROTH

My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you...
PHILIP ROTH

Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obst...
PHILIP ROTH

Fluency can be a sign that nothing is happening; fluency can actually be my signal to stop, while be...
PHILIP ROTH

With the draft, everybody was involved. Everybody was fodder. When you got to be 21, 22 and graduate...
PHILIP ROTH

Unless one is inordinately fond of subordination, one is always at war.
PHILIP ROTH

That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for y...
PHILIP ROTH

Only in America do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, an...
PHILIP ROTH

The Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy and will remain a fifteen-year-old until...
PHILIP ROTH

History ... is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
PHILIP ROTH

I was back in touch with my place,
PHILIP ROTH

It's an admission of the books into perpetuity.
PHILIP ROTH

It seemed pretty reckless and vicious. I was just trying to depict the way it was, the way it sounde...
PHILIP ROTH

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fict...
PHILIP ROTH

There's no way in hell cash is about to come roaring back into the market.
PHILIP ROTH

It was my job not just to pluck the chickens but to eviscerate them. I hated that part. Nauseating a...
PHILIP ROTH

other people's weakness can destroy you just as much as their strength can. Weak people are not harm...
PHILIP ROTH

You be greater than your feelings. I don't demand this of you - life does. Otherwise you'll be washe...
PHILIP ROTH

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.
PHILIP ROTH

At night, I read. I read for two hours. I just finished a marvelous book by Louise Erdrich, 'The...
PHILIP ROTH

Routinely, when I finish a book, I think 'What will I do? Where will I get an idea?' And a k...
PHILIP ROTH

My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you...
PHILIP ROTH

These girls with old gents don't do it despite the age—they're drawn to the age, they do it for th...
PHILIP ROTH

You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is g...
PHILIP ROTH

Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain of the 20th century,
PHILIP ROTH

You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expec...
PHILIP ROTH

Good Christ, a Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-ye...
PHILIP ROTH

Doctor doctor, what do you say, lets put the id back in yid
PHILIP ROTH

...they'll say, 'He never recovered from that breakdown and this was the result. It had to be the br...
PHILIP ROTH

But the pleasure isn't owning the person. The pleasure is this. Having another contender in the room...
PHILIP ROTH

When I was first in Czechoslovakia, it occurred to me that I work in a society where as a writer eve...
PHILIP ROTH

Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of i...
PHILIP ROTH

I do the same kind of rewriting that I do in the shorts that I do in long books - and that is a lot....
PHILIP ROTH

La poseuse de bombe présumée est décrite comme intelligente et douée mais d'un caractère têtu.
PHILIP ROTH

Let me tell you about the nap. It's absolutely fantastic. When I was a kid, my father was always...
PHILIP ROTH

Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It's just like ...
PHILIP ROTH

You put too much stock in human intelligence, it doesn't annihilate human nature.
PHILIP ROTH

Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.
PHILIP ROTH

You write differently in each book. It may appear to be similar to readers, but you're a differe...
PHILIP ROTH

How much time could you spend staring out the ocean, even if it was the ocean you'd loved since you ...
PHILIP ROTH

I needed my life as a springboard for my fiction. I have to have something solid under my feet when ...
PHILIP ROTH

Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ...
PHILIP ROTH

The disruption of the anticipated American future that was simply to have unrolled out of the solid ...
PHILIP ROTH

What had happened in these ten years for there suddenly be so much to say — so much so pressing th...
PHILIP ROTH

You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong ...
PHILIP ROTH

I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look...
PHILIP ROTH

If you actually succeed in creating a utopia, you've created a world without conflict, in which ...
VERONICA ROTH

It's not that I ever sat down and outlined a trilogy, but I always have a sense of what size an ...
VERONICA ROTH

Seeing people who are actually reading your book and listening to the wide variety of reactions they...
VERONICA ROTH

I always appreciate people's opinions, but sometimes I have to take a step back and remember why...
VERONICA ROTH

I really like the group tour better than going it alone. First of all, it kind of takes the pressure...
VERONICA ROTH

I think it's fascinating to look at a world that an author has created that has sort of stemmed ...
VERONICA ROTH

I think everyone's a little afraid of being part of a trend, because you get compared to each ot...
VERONICA ROTH

I love 'Harry Potter.' I'm a huge nerd - I would dress up if I could.
VERONICA ROTH

I know exactly what it's like to stand on top of a tall building or in a high place and look dow...
VERONICA ROTH

When you're a teenager, everything seems like the end of the world, and I don't think that&#...
VERONICA ROTH

I don't really think about what's 'age appropriate' for my audience because I think ...
VERONICA ROTH

I want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not ans...
VERONICA ROTH

If utopian fiction became the new trend, I wouldn't read it.
VERONICA ROTH

People make me key chains... someone attached a Dauntless symbol to a silver pen. That one is what I...
VERONICA ROTH

When you're a writer, you hear your internal critic, and that's really hard to get over. And...
VERONICA ROTH

'Divergent' was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn't the plan. I never even set out to ...
VERONICA ROTH

There's really no way to be perfect. Perfectionism is a silly trait to have, so in a lot of ways...
VERONICA ROTH

I think it's a human tendency that's been around for a while to try to be as good as possibl...
VERONICA ROTH

Maybe it's a little depressing to think that my vision of a perfect world is actually so messed ...
VERONICA ROTH

Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.
VERONICA ROTH

'Cabin Fever' was very much inspired by 'The Thing.' It's really a perfect guy&#...
ELI ROTH

As a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi w...
ELI ROTH

I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work here. We do dangerous things and peop...
VERONICA ROTH

Human reason can excuse any evil.
VERONICA ROTH

It's not unlike how we develop any of our stories on our athletes. It's a pretty collaborative effor...
ADAM ROTH

You know, I feel complete. I don't feel like a part of me is missing. I just feel perfect.
ADAM ROTH

That's going to change, and a big part of that change will be the Interstate 355 expansion, schedule...
ADAM ROTH

That's going to change, and a big part of that change will be the Interstate 355 expansion scheduled...
ADAM ROTH

Will County is a global transportation center.
ADAM ROTH

This isn't just about core runners. This is about all athletes of all levels of competition and shap...
ADAM ROTH

To get, give.
BOB ROTH

It’s like being offered lemonade after having something really sweet. The lemonade was wonderful b...
KELLYN ROTH

We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for anothe...
VERONICA ROTH

Two things you should know about me; The first is that I am deeply suspicious of people in general. ...
VERONICA ROTH

But I think that no matter how smart, people usually see what they're already looking for, that's al...
VERONICA ROTH

No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something ...
VERONICA ROTH

I touch her cheek to slow the kiss down, holding her mouth on mine so I can feel every place where o...
VERONICA ROTH

We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important...
VERONICA ROTH

...there is power in self-sacrifice.
VERONICA ROTH

The Amity exchange smiles. They are dressed comfortably in red or yellow. Every time I see them, the...
VERONICA ROTH

A son says to his Mother: "Mother, today I fought with my friend."
His Mother says: "Why did yo...
VERONICA ROTH

I'm not abnegation, I'm not dauntless, I am Divergent
VERONICA ROTH

Can you tell me where to find Tobias'? I ask. When I imagine his face, affection for him bubbles up ...
VERONICA ROTH

Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?
I want to be.
I can.
I believe it.
VERONICA ROTH

Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge i...
VERONICA ROTH

Lies require commitment.
VERONICA ROTH

I could never hurt him enough to make his betrayal stop hurting. And it hurts, in every part of my b...
VERONICA ROTH

A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.
VERONICA ROTH

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be....
ERIC ROTH

Sleep,” he says. “I'll fight the bad dreams off if they come to get you.” “With what?” “...
VERONICA ROTH

I think you're still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me.
VERONICA ROTH

I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyaty I give them, for...
VERONICA ROTH

Some things are hard to let go of.
VERONICA ROTH

Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up
VERONICA ROTH

Tris," he says. "What did they do to you? You're acting like a lunatic."
"That's not very nice ...
VERONICA ROTH

Can you be a girl for a few seconds?"
"I'm always a girl" I frown.
"You know what I mean. ...
VERONICA ROTH

When her body first hit the net, all I registered was a gray blur. I pulled her across it and her ha...
VERONICA ROTH

There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life f...
VERONICA ROTH

You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re tr...
VERONICA ROTH

We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst...
VERONICA ROTH

What did you do?” I mumble. He is just a few feet away from me now, but not close enough to hear m...
VERONICA ROTH

Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and ho...
VERONICA ROTH

I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else availab...
VERONICA ROTH

Then I realize what it is. It's him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or t...
VERONICA ROTH

I have something I need to tell you," he says. I run my fingers along the tendons in his hands and l...
VERONICA ROTH

Ich habe sie Erfahrung gemacht, dass die Menschen aus vielen verschiedenen Schichten von Geheimnisse...
VERONICA ROTH

. . . hell is wanting to be somewhere different from where you are. Being one place and wanting to b...
GENEEN ROTH

When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe tha...
GENEEN ROTH

You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are...
GENEEN ROTH

Dead people can be our heroes because they cant disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as...
VERONICA ROTH

I feel like myself, strong and weak at once - allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.
VERONICA ROTH

If you look in the animal world, many, many organisms will enter into states of suspended animation.
MARK ROTH

As a teenager, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and a lot of that, for me, was about finding a mor...
VERONICA ROTH

Chile could work as a double for L.A.; it's very production-friendly and there's terrific ta...
ELI ROTH

I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.
VERONICA ROTH

There is a difference between admitting and confessing. Admitting involves softening, making excuses...
VERONICA ROTH

Caleb," I say, "I love you."
His eyes gleam with tear as he says, "I love you, too, Beatrice.
VERONICA ROTH

I don’t know how long it takes for me to realize that isn’t going to happen,
that she is go...
VERONICA ROTH

Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine.
VERONICA ROTH

It's what you deserve to hear," I say firmly, my eyes going cloudy with tears. "That you're whole, t...
VERONICA ROTH

Sometimes I still forget to look for the gentler parts of her. For so long all I saw was the strengt...
VERONICA ROTH

Take a person’s memories, and you change who they are.
VERONICA ROTH

But that wasn´t the first time I ever saw her. I saw her in the hallways at school, and at my mothe...
VERONICA ROTH

I love you" I say.
"I love you, too" he says. "I'll see you soon.
VERONICA ROTH

Yeah, sometimes life really sucks," she says. "But you know what I'm holding on for?"

I r...
VERONICA ROTH

The first step to loving someone else is to recognize the evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them.
VERONICA ROTH

If I don't survive," I say, "tell Tobias I didn't want to leave him.
VERONICA ROTH

The person you became with her is worth being.
VERONICA ROTH

Change, like healing, takes time.
VERONICA ROTH

You're not very nice," I say, grinning.
"You're one to talk."
"Hey, I could be nice if I t...
VERONICA ROTH

I'll say it one last time: Be brave.
VERONICA ROTH

She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love... That it should be done f...
VERONICA ROTH

I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.
VERONICA ROTH

I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.
VERONICA ROTH

There is less pressure as a character actor. It generally means that you will be acting for all of y...
TIM ROTH

When they were casting, Denis was very specific that he didn't want any actors from L.A. and I was l...
ANDREA ROTH

He's a dream. He's the greatest. We shoot about 14 pages a day, which is maybe seven different scene...
ANDREA ROTH

All the characters are good and bad. None of them are soft and fluffy.
ANDREA ROTH

We got a great response (after the first episode) from firemen and their wives, but since then, cert...
ANDREA ROTH

Natural disasters are terrifying - that loss of control, this feeling that something is just going t...
ELI ROTH

Creative writing and shooting are muscles that atrophy. But when you work them, you become a self-ge...
ELI ROTH

You read a script and its based on 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', and it goes ...
TIM ROTH

'Beatrice Cenci' was an amazing film. If it were released today it'd win Best Picture. I...
ELI ROTH

In my own relationships, I know that I should break up with someone who doesn't encourage me to ...
VERONICA ROTH

I regret..." Tobias tilts his head, and sighs. "I regret my choice."
"What Choice?"
"Daunt...
VERONICA ROTH

I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for your...
VERONICA ROTH

Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.
VERONICA ROTH

For a few minutes we kiss, deep in the chasm, with the roar of water all around us. And we rise, han...
VERONICA ROTH

People tend to overestimate my character," I say quietly. "They think that because I'm small, or a g...
VERONICA ROTH

You think giving you a hug would give away too much?" he says.
"You know," I say. "I really don...
VERONICA ROTH

One Choice

One Choice, decided your friends.

One Choice, defines your beliefs....
VERONICA ROTH

Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.
VERONICA ROTH

You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl." I roll my eyes.
"...
VERONICA ROTH

I feel his heartbeat against my cheek,as fast as my own.
"Are you afraid of me, too, Tobias?" VERONICA ROTH

Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understa...
VERONICA ROTH

Four flips the gun in this hand, presses the barrel to Peter's forehead, and clicks a bullet into pl...
VERONICA ROTH

Who cares about pretty? I'm going for noticeable.
VERONICA ROTH

Moths," repeats Will. "You're afraid of moths?"

"Not just a cloud of moths," she says, "...
VERONICA ROTH

Sometimes, the best way to help someone is just to be near them.
VERONICA ROTH

I feel like someone breathed new air into my lungs. I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless.
I...
VERONICA ROTH

It must require bravery to be honest all the time.
VERONICA ROTH

Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.
VERONICA ROTH

You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you'...
VERONICA ROTH

I am selfish. I am brave.
VERONICA ROTH

Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.
VERONICA ROTH

Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped breathing.'

'Well,' he says, 'I would onl...
VERONICA ROTH

I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different.
VERONICA ROTH

Living without virtues is to live divorced from society, seperated from the most important thing in ...
VERONICA ROTH

I don't need to relive my fears anymore. All I need to do now is try to overcome them.
VERONICA ROTH

The opinions of others cannot damage you.
VERONICA ROTH

It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.
VERONICA ROTH

Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that dama...
VERONICA ROTH

She said that everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recogniz...
VERONICA ROTH

The wish fulfillment of growing younger is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be. You have n...
ERIC ROTH

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.

Copied!

Philip Roth

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.

Philip Roth

Share:

Related

More Philip Roth