01c. 1975 AD...I realized that my father, of all these men, was the most obstinate, helplessly bonded to his better instincts and their excessive demands. I only then understood that he had quit his job not merely because he was fearful of what awaited us down the line should we agree like the others to be relocated, but because, for better or worse, when he was bullied by superior forces that he deemed corrupt it was his nature not to yield--in this instance, to resist either running away to Canada, as my mother urged our doing, or bowing to a government directive that was patently unjust. There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty And Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.Philip Roth / quote ↗
02c. 1975 ADIt's human to have a secret, but it's just as human to reveal it sooner or later.Philip Roth / quote ↗
03c. 1975 ADI turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning. And if I knock off from this routine for as long as a day, I’m frantic with boredom . . .Philip Roth / quote ↗
04c. 1975 ADYou have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.Philip Roth / quote ↗
05c. 1975 ADHe was trying hard to continue to exist as himself despite the unlikeliness of everything.Philip Roth / quote ↗
06c. 1975 ADWhat are you? Do you know? What you are is you're always trying to smooth everything over. What you are is always trying to be moderate. What you are is never telling the truth if you think it's going to hurt somebody's feelings. What you are is you're always compromising. What you are is always complacent. What you are is always trying to find the bright side of things. The one with the manners. The one who abides everything patiently. The one with ultimate decorum. The boy who never breaks the code.Philip Roth / quote ↗
07c. 1975 ADMemories particularly of when they weren’t being what parents are nine-tenths of the time, the taskmasters, the examples, the moral authorities, the nags of pick-that-up and you’re-going-to-be-late, keepers of the diary of her duties and routines, memories, rather, of when they found one another afresh, beyond the tensions between parental mastery and inept childish uncertainty, of those moments of respite in a family’s life when they could reach one another in calmPhilip Roth / quote ↗
08c. 1975 ADNone of us ate together: my Aunt Gladys ate at five o’clock, my cousin Susan at five-thirty, me at six, and my uncle at six-thirty. There is nothing to explain this beyond the fact that my aunt is crazy.Philip Roth / quote ↗
10c. 1975 ADother people's weakness can destroy you just as much as their strength can. Weak people are not harmless. Their weakness can be their strength.Philip Roth / quote ↗
11c. 1975 ADFor discipline is imposed not just on oneself but on those in one's orbit.Philip Roth / quote ↗
12c. 1975 ADThe fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's 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 / quote ↗
13c. 1975 ADIt is not our high purposes alone that make us moving creatures, but our humble needs and cravings.Philip Roth / quote ↗
14c. 1975 ADIn my parents' day and age, it used to be the person who fell short. Now it's the discipline. Reading the classics is too difficult, therefore it's the classics that are to blame. Today the student asserts his incapacity as a privilege. I can't learn it, so there is something wrong with it. And there is something especially wrong with the bad teacher who wants to teach it. There are no more criteria, Mr. Zuckerman, only opinions.Philip Roth / quote ↗
15c. 1975 ADI was still too much of a fledgling with people to understand that, in the long run, nobody is a picnic and that I was no picnic myself.Philip Roth / quote ↗
16c. 1975 ADIf you read the novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel reallyPhilip Roth / quote ↗
17c. 1975 ADThe Jewish man with parents still alive is a fifteen-year-old boy and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die.Philip Roth / quote ↗
18c. 1975 ADA Jewish man with parents alive is a 15-year-old boy and will remain a 15-year-old boy until they die.Philip Roth / quote ↗
20c. 1975 ADI work all day, morning and afternoon, just about every day. If I sit there like that for two or three years, at the end I have a book.Philip Roth / quote ↗
21c. 1975 ADFear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline.Philip Roth / quote ↗
22c. 1975 ADObviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.Philip Roth / quote ↗
24c. 1975 ADA Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.Philip Roth / quote ↗
