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You Have, Like The External World, Your Own Phenomena Inside.
-Saul Bellow
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You Have, Like The

Saul Bellow
...
You Have, Like The External World, Your Own Phenomena Inside.

Understanding the Quote: "you have, like the external world, your own phenomena inside...."

This quote by Saul Bellow reflects deeply on the theme of self. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Self, World, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Saul Bellow interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow is celebrated for insightful thoughts on self and world. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Self
World
More From Saul Bellow
The Physical Body Is An Agent Of The Spirit And Its Mirror. It Is An Engine And A Reflection Of The Spirit. It Is The Spirit's Ingenious Memorandum To Itself And The Spirit Sees Itself In My Body, Just As I See My Own Face In A Looking Glass. My Nerves Reflect This. The Earth Is Literally A Mirror Of Thoughts. Objects Themselves Are Embodied Thoughts. Death Is The Dark Backing That A Mirror Needs If We Are To See Anything.
Dark
Reflection
Glasses
Great Pressure Is Brought To Bear To Make Us Undervalue Ourselves. On The Other Hand, Civilization Teaches That Each Of Us Is An Inestimable Prize. There Are, Then, These Two Preparations: One For Life And The Other For Death. Therefore We Value And Are Ashamed To Value Ourselves.
Self
Hands
Civilization
(socrates) Said There Were Only Two Possibilities. Either The Soul Is Immortal Or, After Death, Things Would Be Again As Blank As They Were Before We Were Born.
Two
Soul
Would Be
I Think That New York Is Not The Cultural Centre Of America, But The Business And Administrative Centre Of American Culture.
New York
Thinking
America
A Writer Is A Reader Moved To Emulation.
Writing
Emulation
Reader
I Don’t Actually Take Much Stock In The Collapsing Culture Bit. I’m Beginning To See It Instead As The Conduct Of Life Without Input From Your Soul.
Soul
Culture
Input
Alternatives, And Particularly Desirable Alternatives, Grow Only On Imaginary Trees.
Decision
Tree
Alternatives
I Am Deeply Moved When I Write. I Get Turned On By It. I've Never Used Any Drugs For Stimulation. I Don't Use Words Loosely. When I'm Working And The Right Word Comes, There Is An Answering Resonance Within Me. There Is Also A Hardness Of Intention That Goes With It. There Is No Idleness In It.
Writing
Drug
Use
Death Is The Dark Backing A Mirror Needs If We Are To See Anything
Dark
Mirrors
Needs
It's Not Up To Me ... To Make The World Consistent.
Consistency
World
Consistent
I Don't Like To Write From A Flat, Cold Position. You Must Like What You're Doing Very Much Or Like The People -- Either Like Them Or Hate Them. You Can't Be Indifferent.
Hate
Writing
People
It's No Disgrace To Be A Private, You Know. Socrates Was A Plain Foot Soldier, A Hoplite.
Humility
Feet
Soldier
Hapiness Can Only Be Found If You Can Free Yourself Of All Other Distractions.
Free Yourself
Madness
Distraction
I'm Glad I Haven't Lived In Vain.
Aging
Vain
Glad
I've Discovered That Rejections Are Not Altogether A Bad Thing. They Teach A Writer To Rely On His Own Judgment And To Say In His Heart Of Hearts, 'to Hell With You.'
Love
Writing
Heart
The Secret Motive Of The Absent-minded Is To Be Innocent While Guilty. Absent-mindedness Is Spurious Innocence.
Secret
Innocence
Guilty
As For Types Like My Own, Obscurely Motivated By The Conviction That Our Existence Was Worthless If We Didn't Make A Turning Point Of It, We Were Assigned To The Humanities, To Poetry, Philosophy, Painting - The Nursery Games Of Humankind, Which Had To Be Left Behind When The Age Of Science Began. The Humanities Would Be Called Upon To Choose A Wallpaper For The Crypt, As The End Drew Near.
Art
Philosophy
Science
I Blame Myself For Not Often Enough Seeing The Extraordinary In The Ordinary. Somewhere In His Journals, Dostoyevky Remarks That A Writer Can Begin Anywhere, At The Most Commonplace Thing, Scratch Around In It Long Enough, Pry And Dig Away Long Enough, And Lo!, Soon He Will Hit Upon The Marvelous.
Writing
Long
Ordinary
Everyone Tries To Create A World He Can Live In, And What He Can't Use He Often Can't See. But The Real World Is Already Created, And If Your Fabrication Doesn't Correspond, Then Even If You Feel Noble And Insist On There Being Something Better Than What People Call Reality, That Better Something Needn't Try To Exceed What, In Its Actuality, Since We Know It So Little, May Be Very Surprising. If A Happy State Of Things, Surprising; If Miserable Or Tragic, No Worse Than What We Invent.
Real
Often Can
People
You Have, Like The External World, Your Own Phenomena Inside.
Self
World
My Face Too Blind, My Mind Too Limited, My Instincts Too Narrow. But This Intensity, Doesn't It Mean Anything?
Life
Mean
Mind
...is The Carbon Molecule Lined With Thought?
Molecules
Chemistry
Carbon
The Dream Of Man's Heart ... Is That Life May Complete In Significant Pattern.
Dream
Heart
Men
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, That The Single Existence Is Itself An Illusion In Part, That These Many Existences Signify Something, Tend To Something, Fulfill Something; It Promises Us Meaning, Harmony, And Even Justice.
Justice
Diversity
Promise
The Soul Has To Find And Hold Its Ground Against Hostile Forces, Sometimes Embodied In Ideas Which Frequently Deny Its Very Existence, And Which Indeed Often Seem To Be Trying To Annul It Altogether.
Ideas
Soul
Trying
Boredom Is The Conviction That You Can't Change ... The Shriek Of Unused Capacities.
Blessing
Boredom
Conviction
A Novel Is Balanced Between A Few True Impressions And The Multitude Of False Ones That Make Up Most Of What We Call Life.
Impression
Novel
Multitudes
A Millennial Belief In A Holy God May Have The Effect Of Deepening The Soul, But It Is Also Obviously Archaic, And Modern Influences Would Presently Bring Me Up To Date And Reveal How Antiquated My Origins Were. To Turn Away From Those Origins, However, Has Always Seemed To Me An Utter Impossibility. It Would Be A Treason To My First Consciousness To Un-jew Myself.
Soul
Would Be
Millennials
Those Who Have A Why To Live For Can Bear Almost Any How. The Necessary Premise Is That A Person Is Somehow More Than His Or Her "characteristics," All The Emotions, Strivings, Tastes, And Constructions Which It Pleases Us To Call "my Life." We Have Grounds To Hope That A Life Is Something More Than A Cloud Of Particles, Mere Facticity. Go Through What Is Comprehensible And You Conclude That Only The Incomprehensible Gives Any Light.
Life
Clouds
Light
...i Am Much Better Now At Ambiguities.
Ambiguity
Better Now
Unless You're Completely Exploded, There's Always Something To Be Grateful For.
Grateful
Be Grateful
Showing Gratitude
Love Is The Most Potent Cosmetic.
Love
Love Is
Cosmetics
And What About All The Good I Have In My Heart - Does It Mean Anything?
Heart
Mean
Doe
De Tocqueville Considered The Impulse Toward Well-being As One Of The Strongest Impulses Of A Democratic Society. He Can't Be Blamed For Underestimating The Destructive Powers Generated By This Same Impulse.
Underestimate
Democratic
Impulse
Can We Find Nothing Good To Say About Tv? Well, Yes, It Brings Scattered Solitaries Into A Sort Of Communion. Tv Allows Your Isolated American To Think That He Participates In The Life Of The Entire Country. It Does Not Actually Place Him In A Community, But His Heart Is Warmed With The Suggestion (on The Whole False) That There Is A Community Somewhere In The Vicinity And That His Atomized Consciousness Will Be Drawn Back Toward The Whole.
Country
Heart
Thinking
Only Self-hatred Could Lead Him To Ruin Himself Because His Heart Was "broken.
Heart
Self
Broken
California Is Like An Artificial Limb The Rest Of The Country Doesn't Really Need. You Can Quote Me On That.
Country
California
Needs
I Have, Perhaps, A Slave-like Constitution Which Is Too Easily Restrained By Bonds; It Then Becomes Rebellious And Bursts Out In A Comic Revolution.
Revolution
Constitution
Rebellious
Readiness To Answer All Questions Is The Infallible Sign Of Stupidity.
Stupidity
Answers
Readiness
The Only Real Distinction At This Dangerous Moment In Human History And Cosmic Development Has Nothing To Do With Medals And Ribbons. Not To Fall Asleep Is Distinguished. Everything Else Is Mere Popcorn.
Art
Philosophy
Real
Fidelity Is For Phonographs
Fidelity
Phonograph
I Mean You Have Been Disappointed In Love, But Don't You Know How Many Things There Are To Be Disappointed In Besides Love? You Are Lucky To Be Still Disappointed In Love. Later It May Be Even More Terrible.
Love You
Mean
May
A Writer Is In The Broadest Sense A Spokesman Of His Community. Through Him That Community Comes To Know Its Heart. Without Such Knowledge, How Long Can It Survive?
Writing
Heart
Long
The Hour That Burst The Spirit's Sleep.
Sleep
Spirit
Hours
Open Discussion Of Many Major Public Questions Has For Some Time Now Been Taboo. We Can't Open Our Mouths Without Being Denounced As Racists, Misogynists, Supremacists, Imperialists Or Fascists. As For The Media, They Stand Ready To Trash Anyone So Designated.
Media
Political
Racist
Facts Always Are Sensational.
Facts
Sensational
People Don't Realize How Much They Are In The Grip Of Ideas. We Live Among Ideas Much More Than We Live In Nature.
Ideas
People
Insightful
It Seems, After All That There Are No Nonpeculiar People.
People
Seems
Ninety Per Cent Of Life Is A Nightmare, Do You Think I Am Going To Get It Rounded Up To Hundred Per Cent?
Thinking
Nightmare
Life Is
In Expressing Love We Belong Among The Undeveloped Countries.
Love
Country
Expressing Love
Americans Must Be The Most Sententious People In History. Far Too Busy To Be Religious, They Have Always Felt That They Sorely Needed Guidance.
Religious
People
Busy
Psychoanalysis Pretends To Investigate The Unconscious. The Unconscious By Definition Is What You Are Not Conscious Of. But The Analysts Already Know What's In It - They Should, Because They Put It All In Beforehand.
Definitions
Conscious
Analysts
But She's A Nut, And Nuts Win.
Winning
Nuts
A Person Either Creates Or Destroys. There Is No Neutrality.
Creativity
Neutrality
Persons
But There Are Things You Can't Consult Anybody About.
Confiding
O Lord! He Concluded, Forgive All These Trespasses. Lead Me Not Into Penn Station.
Forgiving
Lord
Leading Me
The Two Real Problems In Life Are Boredom And Death.
Real
Two
Boredom
Because I Have Become Such A Solitary, And Not In The Aristotelian Sense: Not A Beast, Not A God. Rather, A Loner Troubled By Longings, Incapable Of Finding A Suitable Language And Despairing At The Impossibility Of Composing Messages In A Playable Key--as If I No Longer Understood The Codes Used By The Estimable People Who Wanted To Hear From Me And Would Have So Much To Reply If Only The Impediments Were Taken Away.
Taken
Keys
People
How Should I Know Why! I Didn't Invent Human Beings, Iggy.
Should
Humans
Knows
A Great Deal Of Intelligence Can Be Invested In Ignorance When The Need For Illusion Is Deep.
Inspirational
Freedom
Fear
We Are Always Looking For The Book It Is Necessary To Read Next.
Book
Next
The Best Argument Is An Undeniably Good Book.
Book
Argument
Defeat
We Take Foreigners To Be Incomplete Americans -- Convinced That We Must Help And Hasten Their Evolution.
America
Helping
Evolution
... A Fellow Can't Predict What He Will Pick Up In The Form Of Influence.
Influence
Form
Fellows
I've Never Turned Over A Fig Leaf Yet That Didn't Have A Price Tag On The Other Side.
Price Tag
Two Sides
Figs
The Fact That There Are So Many Weak, Poor And Boring Stories And Novels Written And Published In America Has Been Ascribed By Our Rebels To The Horrible Squareness Of Our Institutions, The Idiocy Of Power, The Debasement Of Sexual Instincts, And The Failure Of Writers To Be Alienated Enough. The Poems And Novels Of These Same Rebellious Spirits, And Their Theoretical Statements, Are Grimy And Gritty And Very Boring Too, Besides Being Nonsensical, And It Is Evident By Now That Polymorphous Sexuality And Vehement Declarations Of Alienation Are Not Going To Produce Great Works Of Art Either.
Art
America
Poetry
All Human Accomplishment Has The Same Origin, Identically. Imagination Is A Force Of Nature. Is This Not Enough To Make A Person Full Of Ecstasy? Imagination, Imagination, Imagination.
Imagination
Force
Forces Of Nature
How Could I Be Anything But A Dissenter? Who Wants The Opinion Of A Group?
Groups
Want
Opinion
We Are All Such Accidents. We Do Not Make Up History And Culture. We Simply Appear, Not By Our Own Choice. We Make What We Can Of Our Condition With The Means Available. We Must Accept The Mixture As We Find It - The Impurity Of It, The Tragedy Of It, The Hope Of It.
Mean
Choices
Tragedy
A Man Should Be Able To Hear, And To Bear, The Worst That Could Be Said Of Him.
Real Men
Able
Bears
If Women Are Expected To Do The Same Work As Men, We Must Teach Them The Same Things.
Teacher
Women
Ability
We Are Funny Creatures. We Don't See The Stars As They Are, So Why Do We Love Them? They Are Not Small Gold Objects, But Endless Fire.
Inspirational
Stars
Fire
Is Love Supposed To Ruin You? It Seems To Me You Shouldn't Destroy Yourself Out Of Life For Purposes Of Love--or What Good Is It?
Ruins
Purpose
Seems
The Ocean Was Waiting With Grand And Bitter Provocations, As If It Invited You To Think How Deep It Was, How Much Colder Than Your Blood Or Saltier, Or To Outguess It, To Tell Which Were Its Feints Or Passes And Which Its Real Intentions, Meaning Business.
Real
Ocean
Thinking
One Of The Booby Traps Of Freedom - Which Is Bordered On All Sides By Isolation - Is That We Think So Well Of Ourselves. I Now See That I Have Helped Myself To The Best Cuts At Life's Banquet.
Freedom
Cutting
Thinking
The Spirit Knows That Its Growth Is The Real Aim Of Existence.
Real
Growth
Spirit
Human Character Is Smaller Now, People Don't Have Durable Passions; They've Replaced Passions With Excitement.
Passion
Character
People
When The Striving Ceases, There Is Life Waiting As A Gift.
Waiting
Strive
Cease
Unexpected Intrusions Of Beauty. This Is What Life Is.
Life
Beauty
Unexpected
It's Hard For Writers To Get On With Their Work If They Are Convinced That They Owe A Concrete Debt To Experience And Cannot Allow Themselves The Privilege Of Ranging Freely Through Social Classes And Professional Specialties. A Certain Pride In Their Own Experience, Perhaps A Sense Of The Property Rights Of Others In Their Experience, Holds Them Back.
Pride
Rights
Class
Any Artist Should Be Grateful For A Naive Grace Which Puts Him Beyond The Need To Reason Elaborately.
Grateful
Artist
Grace
There's A Kind Of Emptiness At The Center Of Life ... Nothing To Form Your Life On, Or By.
Life
Emptiness
Kind
A Man Must Have Limits And Cannot Give In To The Wild Desires To Be Everything And Everyone And Everything To Everyone.
Men
Giving
Desire
...america Didn't Have To Fight Scarcity And We All Felt Guilty Before People Who Still Had To Struggle For Bread And Freedom In The Old Way ... We Weren't Starving, We Weren't Bugged By The Police, Locked Up In Madhouses For Our Ideas, Arrested, Deported, Slave Laborers Sent To Die In Concentration Camps. We Were Spared The Holocausts And Nights Of Terror. With Our Advantages We Should Be Formulating The New Basic Questions For Mankind. But Instead We Sleep. Just Sleep And Sleep, And Eat And Play And Fuss And Sleep Again.
Struggle
Sleep
Fighting
To Tell The Truth I Never Had It So Good. But I Lacked The Strength Of Character To Bear Such Joy.
Character
Joy
Bears
Conquered People Tend To Be Witty.
Witty
Art
Philosophy
Brother Raises A Hand Against Brother And Son Against Father (how Terrible!) And The Father Also Against Son. And Moreover It Is A Continuity-matter, For If The Father Did Not Strike The Son, They Would Not Be Alike. It Is Done To Perpetuate Similarity. Oh, Henderson, Man Cannot Keep Still Under The Blows.... A Hit B? B Hit C?--we Have Not Enough Alphabet To Cover The Condition. A Brave Man Will Try To Make The Evil Stop With Him. He Shall Keep The Blow. No Man Shall Get It From Him, And That Is A Sublime Ambition.
Brother
Father
Ambition
Writers Are Greatly Respected. The Intelligent Public Is Wonderfully Patient With Them, Continues To Read Them, And Endures Disappointment After Disappointment, Waiting To Hear From Art What It Does Not Hear From Theology, Philosophy, Social Theory, And What It Cannot Hear From Pure Science. Out Of The Struggle At The Center Has Come 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.
Art
Disappointment
Philosophy
I Am An American – Chicago Born.
Chicago
Born
The First Undressing Of Two Lovers Is A Most Special Event.
Two
Special
Events
It's Goodbye To Reality When Love Sets In.
Goodbye
Reality
The Life Of Every Citizen Is Becoming A Business. This, It Seems To Me, Is One Of The Worst Interpretations Of The Meaning Of Human Life History Has Ever Seen. Man's Life Is Not A Business.
Men
Citizens
Becoming
And I Said To Myself That Unless You Conceive Death To Be A Violent Guerrilla And Kidnaper Who Snatches Those You Love, And If You Are Not Cowardly And Cannot Submit To Such Terrorism As Civilized People Now Do In Every Department Of Life, You Must Pursue And Inquire And Explore Every Possibility And Seek Everywhere And Try Everything.
People
Trying
Terrorism
A Plan Relieves You Of The Torment Of Choice.
Choices
Plans
Torment
In An Age Of Madness, To Expect To Be Untouched By Madness Is A Form Of Madness. But The Pursuit Of Sanity Can Be A Form Of Madness, Too
Crazy
Mad
Age
I Must Play The Instrument I've Got.
Music
Play
Instruments
Take Our Politicians: They're A Bunch Of Yo-yos. The Presidency Is Now A Cross Between A Popularity Contest And A High School Debate, With An Encyclopedia Of Cliches.
School
Politics
Firsts
We Mustn't Forget How Quickly The Visions Of Genius Become The Canned Goods Of Intellectuals.
Vision
Genius
Forget
It Is Wrong To Turn A Man (a Subject) Into A Thing (an Object). By Means Of Spiritual Dialogue, The I-it Relationship Becomes An I-thou Relationship. God Comes And Goes In Man's Soul. And Men Come And Go In Each Other's Souls. Sometimes They Come And Go In Each Other's Beds, Too.
Spiritual
Mean
Men
It Would Not Be Practical For Her To Hate Herself. Luckily, God Sends A Substitute, A Husband.
Husband
Hate
Substitutes
It Wasn't That He Was Specially Ungenerous But That He Put Things Off To Give His Generosity A Longer And More Significant Route.
Generosity
Giving
Significant
There Is Simply Too Much To Think About.
Thinking
Too Much
With A Novelist, Like A Surgeon, You Have To Get A Feeling That You've Fallen Into Good Hands - Someone From Whom You Can Accept The Anesthetic With Confidence.
Hands
Feelings
Novelists
Each Man Has His Own Batch Of Poems.
Men
Poetry
Goodness Is Achieved Not In A Vacuum, But In The Company Of Other Men, Attended By Love.
Kindness
Men
Vacuums
I Labor, I Spend, I Strive, I Design, I Love, I Cling, I Uphold, I Give Way, I Envy, I Long, I Scorn, I Die, I Hide, I Want. Faster, Much Faster Than Any Man Could Make The Tally.
Men
Long
Giving
You Can Spend The Entire Second Half Of Your Life Recovering From The Mistakes Of The First Half.
Inspirational
Mistake
Half
She's Very Pretty But She's Honey From The Icebox, If You Know What I Mean. Cold Sweets Won't Spread.
Sweet
Mean
Honey
One Must Bear In Mind The Odd Angle Or Slant That The Rays Of Love Have To Take In Order To Reach A Heart Like Mine.
Heart
Order
Mind
She Was What We Used To Call A Suicide Blonde - Dyed By Her Own Hand.
Funny
Girl
Sarcastic
I Feel That Art Has Something To Do With The Achievement Of Stillness In The Midst Of Chaos.
Art
Achievement
Chaos
Art Is Order, Made Out Of The Chaos Of Life.
Art
Order
Chaos
Socrates Said The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living. But The Over-examined Life Makes You Wish You Were Dead. Given The Alternative, I'd Rather Be Living.
Wish
Alternatives
Life Is
In Politics Continental Europe Was Infantile - Horrifying. What America Lacked, For All Its Political Stability, Was The Capacity To Enjoy Intellectual Pleasures As Though They Were Sensual Pleasures. This Is What Europe Offered, Or Was Said To Offer.
Europe
America
Political
Art Attempts To Find In The Universe, In Matter As Well As In The Facts Of Life, What Is Fundamental, Enduring, Essential.
Art
Design
Matter
The Sand Swallows Burst Out Of Their Scupper Holes In The Bluffs And Out Over The Transparent Drown Of The Water, Back Again To The White, To The Brown, To The Black, From Moving To Stock-still Sand Waves And Water-worked Woods And Roots That Hugged And Twisted In The Sun.
Moving
Roots
White
I'm Afraid There's Nothing We Can Do About The Journalists; We Can Only Hope That They Will Die Off As The Deerflies Do Towards The End Of August.
August
Ends
Journalist
One Thought-murder A Day Keeps The Psychiatrist Away.
Existentialism
Murder
Psychiatrist
There Are Evils That Have The Ability To Survive Identification And Go On For Ever... Money, For Instance, Or War.
War
Evil
Goes On
Strict Seriousness Was Far More Dangerous Than Any Joke.
Dangerous
Strict
Seriousness
Guys Like You Make Life Easy For Some Women.
Guy
Like You
Easy
Unfortunately For The Betterment Of Mankind It Is Not Always The Fair-minded Who Are In The Right.
Mankind
Betterment
Fairs
The Modern Reader (or Viewer, Or Listener: Let's Include Everybody) Is Perilously Overloaded. His Attention Is, To Use The Latest Lingo,'targeted' By Powerful Forces? Our Consciousness Is A Staging Area, A Field Of Operations For All Kinds Of Enterprises, Which Make Free Use Of It.
Powerful
Attention
Use
There Is Much To Be Said For Exotic Marriages. If Your Husband Is A Bore, It Takes Years Longer To Discover.
Husband
Years
Exotic
I Don't Know Exactly How It's Done. I Let It Alone A Good Deal.
Done
Crafts
Deals
I See That I've Become A Really Bad Correspondent. It's Not That I Don't Think Of You. You Come Into My Thoughts Often. But When You Do It Appears To Me That I Owe You A Particularly Grand Letter. And So You End In The "warehouse Of Good Intentions": "can't Do It Now." "then Put It On Hold." This Is One's Strategy For Coping With Old Age, And With Death--because One Can't Die With So Many Obligations In Storage. Our Clever Species, So Fertile And Resourceful In Denying Its Weaknesses.
Clever
Thinking
Age
I’ve Had All The Monstrosity I Want.
Want
Monstrosity
I Want To Tell You, Don't Marry Suffering. Some People Do. They Get Married To It, And Sleep And Eat Together, Just As Husband And Wife. If They Go With Joy They Think It's Adultery.
Husband
Sleep
Thinking
One Way Or Another The No Doubt Mad Idea Entered My Mind That My Own Actions Had Historic Importance And This Fantasy (?) Made It Appear That People Who Harmed Me Were Interfering With An Important Experiment.
Ideas
People
Mad
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.
Selfish
Heart
People
I Would Like To Explain That I Consider Prayer Above All An Act Of Gratitude For Existence.
Gratitude
Prayer
Existence
He Believed That He Must, That He Could And Would Recover The Good Things, The Happy Things, The Easy Tranquil Things Of Life. He Had Made Mistakes, But He Could Overlook These. He Had Been A Fool, But That Could Be Forgiven. The Time Wasted--must Be Relinquished. What Else Could One Do About It? Things Were Too Complex, But They Might Be Reduced To Simplicity Again. Recovery Was Possible.
Mistake
Recovery
Simplicity
The Writer Cannot Make The Seas Of Distraction Stand Still, But He [or She] Can At Times Come Between The Madly Distracted And The Distractions.
Writing
Sea
Distraction
The Flesh Would Shrink And Go, The Blood Would Dry, But No One Believes In His Mind Of Minds Or Heart Of Hearts That The Pictures Do Stop.
Believe
Heart
Blood
In Here, The Human Bosom -- Mine, Yours, Everybody's -- There Isn't Just One Soul. There's A Lot Of Souls. But There Are Two Main Ones, The Real Soul And A Pretender Soul. Now! Every Man Realizes That He Has To Love Something Or Somebody. He Feels That He Must Go Outward. 'if Thou Canst Not Love, What Art Thou?' Are You With Me?
Art
Real
Men
In Los Angeles All The Loose Objects In The Country Were Collected, As If America Had Been Tilted And Everything That Wasn't Tightly Screwed Down Had Slid Into Southern California.
Country
California
America
The Main Reason For Rewriting Is Not To Achieve A Smooth Surface, But To Discover The Inner Truth Of Your Characters.
Character
Rewriting
Reason
The Terms Which, In His Inmost Heart, Each Man Knows. As I Know Mine. As All Know. For That Is The Truth Of It — That We All Know, God, That We Know, That We Know, We Know, We Know.
Heart
Men
Term
The Best And Purest Human Beings, From The Beginning Of Time, Have Understood That Life Is Sacred.
Life
Sacred
Understood
A Human Soul Devoid Of Longing Was A Soul Deformed, Deprived Of Its Highest Good, Sick Unto Death.
Sick
Soul
Desire
Erotic Practices Have Become Diversified. Sex Used To Be A Single-crop Farming, Like Cotton Or Wheat; Now People Raise All Kinds Of Things.
Sex
Practice
People
If I Had A Child Of School Age, I Would Send Him To One Of The Waldorf Schools.
Children
School
Age
The Stillness In Art Characterizes Prayer, And The Eye Of The Storm.
Art
Prayer
Eye
All A Writer Has To Do To Get A Woman Is To Say He's A Writer. It's An Aphrodisiac.
Marriage
Writing
Aphrodisiac
It Seems Hard For The American People To Believe That Anything Could Be More Exciting Than The Times Themselves. What We Read Daily And View On The Tv Has Thrust Imagined Forms Into The Shadow. We Are Staggeringly Rich In Facts, In Things, And Perhaps, Like The Nouveau Riche Of Other Ages, We Want Our Wealth Faithfully Reproduced By The Artist.
Believe
Artist
Views
A Fool Can Throw A Stone In A Pond That 100 Wise Men Can Not Get Out.
Wise
Men
Ponds
I Immersed Myself In The Periodic Table Gladly And Gratefully. There Is Nothing Superfluous Here, Everything This Book Contains Is Essential. It Is Wonderful Pure, And Beautifully Translated...i Was Deeply Impressed.
Book
Essentials
Tables
In An Age Of Enormities, The Emotions Are Naturally Weakened. We Are Continually Called Upon To Have Feelings - About Genocide, For Instance, Or About Famine Or The Blowing Up Of Passenger Planes - And We Are All Aware That We Are Incapable Of Reacting Appropriately. A Guilty Consciousness Of Emotional Inadequacy Or Impotence Makes People Doubt Their Own Human Weight.
Emotional
People
Feelings
I Pretended Not To Understand. One Of Life's Hardest Jobs, To Make A Quick Understanding Slow. I Think I Succeeded, Thought Herzog.
Jobs
Thinking
Hardest Job
I Am An American, Chicago Born – Chicago, That Somber City – And Go At Things As I Have Taught Myself, Free-style, And Will Make The Record In My Own Way: First To Knock, First Admitted; Sometimes An Innocent Knock, Sometimes A Not So Innocent. But A Man's Character Is His Fate, Says Heraclitus, And In The End There Isn't Any Way To Disguise The Nature Of The Knocks By Acoustical Work On The Door Or Gloving The Knuckles.
Character
Fate
Men
I Love Solitude, But I Prize It Most When Plenty Of Company Is Available.
Inspirational
Solitude
Company
Associate With The Noblest People You Can Find; Read The Best Books; Live With The Mighty; But Learn To Be Happy Alone.
Happiness
Book
People
From Euclid To Newton There Were Straight Lines. The Modern Age Analyzes The Wavers.
Science
Age
Lines
A Good Novel Is Worth More Then The Best Scientific Study.
Writing
Study
Novel
You're All Alone When You're A Writer. Sometimes You Just Feel You Need A Humanity Bath. Even A Ride On The Subway Will Do That. But It's Much More Interesting To Talk About Books. After All, That's What Life Used To Be For Writers: They Talk Books, Politics, History, America. Nothing Has Replaced That.
Book
America
Interesting
Also, He Was Smoking A Cigar, And When A Man Is Smoking A Cigar, Wearing A Hat, He Has An Advantage; It Is Harder To Find Out How He Feels.
Men
Smoking
Hats
Retirement Is An Illusion. Not A Reward But A Mantrap. The Bankrupt Underside Of Success. A Shortcut To Death. Golf Courses Are Too Much Like Cemeteries.
Retirement
Golf
Too Much
It Is A Joy To Be Choked With Thought.
Joy
Nobody Asks You To Love The Whole World, Only To Be Honest, Ehrlich. Don't Have A Loud Mouth. The More You Love People The More They'll Mix You Up. A Child Loves, A Person Respects. Respect Is Better Than Love.
Children
People
World
"what Do Women Want?" "they Eat Green Salad And Drink Human Blood."
Blood
Green
Want
I Am A Phoenix Who Runs After Arsonists.
Running
Phoenix
Arsonists
Let The Enemies Of Life Step Down.
Life
Enemy
Steps
You Have One Of Two Choices. Either You Can Panic And Start Making Frantic Attempts To Reform Under The Glare Of These Awful Critical Eyes, Or You Can Just Say, "the Hell With You! I Know What I'm Doing. If You Don't Yet, It's Because You Haven't Given Me An Attentive Reading.
Reading
Eye
Two
For The First Time In History, The Human Species As A Whole Has Gone Into Politics. Everyone Is In The Act, And There Is No Telling What May Come Of It.
Gone
May
Firsts
There Is Only One Way To Defeat The Enemy, And That Is To Write As Well As One Can. The Best Argument Is An Undeniably Good Book.
Book
Writing
Sunset
Excuse Me ... But I Reject Your Definitions Of Me.
Definitions
Judgment
Excuse
Anxiety Destroys Scale, And Suffering Makes Us Lose Perspective.
Perspective
Anxiety
Suffering
A Man Is Only As Good As What He Loves.
Love
Inspirational
Funny Valentines Day
... Unless You Made Your Life A Turning Point, There Was No Reason For Existing.
Transformation
Reason
Made
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.
Business
Confusion
Soul
... An Era Of Turmoil And Ideological Confusion, The Principal Phenomenon Of The Present Age.
Confusion
Age
Eras
But A Man's Character Is His Fate... And In The End There Isn't Any Way To Disguise The Nature Of The Knocks By Acoustical Work On The Door Or Gloving The Knuckles.
Character
Fate
Men
I Have Begun In Old Age To Understand...that We Seldom If Ever Realize How Generous We Are To Ourselves, And Just How Stingy With Others.
Age
Realizing
Stingy
Losing A Parent Is Something Like Driving Through A Plate-glass Window. You Didn't Know It Was There Until It Shattered, And Then For Years To Come You're Picking Up The Pieces -- Down To The Last Glassy Splinter.
Glasses
Years
Parent
There Are Times When The Most Practical Thing Is To Lie Down.
Lying
Practicals
Practical Things
In Every Community There Is A Class Of People Profoundly Dangerous To The Rest. I Don't Mean The Criminals. For Them We Have Punitive Sanctions. I Mean The Leaders. Invariably The Most Dangerous People Seek The Power. While In The Parlors Of Indignation The Right-thinking Citizen Brings His Heart To A Boil. (p. 51)
Heart
Mean
Thinking
Whoever Wants To Reach A Distant Goal Must Take Small Steps.
Inspirational
Motivational
Uprising
...chaos Doesn't Run The Whole Show.
Running
Chaos
Shows
An Exchange Occurs Between Man And Woman. Love And Thought Complete Each Other In The Human Pair, And Something Like An Exchange Of Souls Takes Place, According To The Divine Plan.
Love
Men
Soul
You Have To Fight For Your Life. That's The Chief Condition On Which You Hold It.
Fighting
Chiefs
Conditions
Death Deserves Dignity.
Death
Dignity
Deserve
I Am Moneys Medium. It Passes Through Me- Taxes, Insurance, Mortgage, Child Support, Rent, Legal Fees. All This Dignified Blundering Costs Plenty.
Children
Support
Cost
A Man May Say, "from Now On I'm Going To Speak The Truth." But The Truth Hears Him And Runs Away And Hides Before He's Even Done Speaking.
Running
Men
May
Some People, If They Didn't Make It Hard For Themselves, Might Fall Asleep.
Fall
People
Might
Do We Always, Always To The Point Of Misery, Do A Thing?
Misery
In The History Of The World Many Souls Have Been, Are, And Will Be, And With A Little Reflection This Is Marvelous And Not Depressing. Many Jerks Are Made Gloomy About It, For They Think Quantity Buries Them Alive. That's Just Crazy. Numbers Are Very Dangerous, But The Main Thing About Them Is That They Humble Your Pride. And That's Good.
Depressing
Crazy
Humble
Humankind Struggles With Collective Powers For Its Freedom, The Individual Struggles With Dehumanization For The Possession Of His Soul.
Struggle
Soul
Individual
Here We Write Well When We Expose Frauds And Hypocrites. We Are Great At Counting Warts And Blemishes And Weighting Feet Of Clay. In Expressing Love, We Belong Among The Underdeveloped Countries.
Country
Writing
Hypocrite
The More Realistic You Are The More You Threaten The Grounds Of Your Own Art.
Art
Realistic
For God's Sake,' The Dog Is Saying, 'open The Universe A Little More!
Dog
Littles
Sake
What Homo Sapien Imagines, He May Slowly Convert Himself To.
Imagination
May
Imagine
Fun Comes Hard - Like, Alas, Its Prarens, Pleasure And Happiness, Whom We Have To Pursue.
Fun
Pleasure
Pursue
Everybody Needs His Memories. They Keep The Wolf Of Insignificance From The Door.
Memories
Doors
Needs
Bringing People Into The Here-and-now. The Real Universe. That's The Present Moment. The Past Is No Good To Us. The Future Is Full Of Anxiety. Only The Present Is Real--the Here-and-now. Seize The Day.
Real
Past
People
When We Ask For Advice, We Are Usually Looking For An Accomplice.
Funny
Humor
Advice
Certain Blood Will Be Given For Half Certain Reasons, As In All Wars.
War
Blood
Half
I Think That Art Has Something To Do With An Arrest Of Attention In The Midst Of Distraction.
Art
Attention
Distraction
At Moments I Dislike Having A Face, A Nose, Lips, Because He Has Them.
Noses
Faces
Lips
I Am Something Of A Crank About Sleep, For If I Get Seven And A Quarter Hours Instead Of Eight I Feel Afflicted And Drag Myself Around, Although There's Nothing Really Wrong With Me. It's Just Another Idea. That's How It Is With My Ideas; They Seem To Get Strong While I Weaken.
Strong
Sleep
Eight
All Human Accomplishment Has This Same Origin, Identically. Imagination Is A Force Of Nature. Is This Not Enough To Make A Person Full Of Ecstasy? Imagination, Imagination, Imagination! It Converts To Actual. It Sustains, It Alters, It Redeems!
Imagination
Accomplishment
Enough
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