Create Yours Create Yours

Top 500 Saul Bellow Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 8 of 10

Saul Bellow Quote: “Reality instructors. They want to teach you – to punish you with – the lessons of the Real.”

351. “Reality instructors. They want to teach you – to punish you with – the lessons of the Real.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “And I saw Clara Spohr coming from the Oyster Bar or being washed forth into this sea, dismasted, clinging to her soul in the shipwreck of her beauty.”

352. “And I saw Clara Spohr coming from the Oyster Bar or being washed forth into this sea, dismasted, clinging to her soul in the shipwreck of her beauty.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “You are lazy, disgraceful, tougher than you think but not yet a dead loss. In part you are humanly okay. We are supposed to do something for our kind. Don’t get frenzied about money. Overcome your greed. Better luck with women. Last of all – remember: we are not natural beings but supernatural beings.”

353. “You are lazy, disgraceful, tougher than you think but not yet a dead loss. In part you are humanly okay. We are supposed to do something for our kind. Don’t get frenzied about money. Overcome your greed. Better luck with women. Last of all – remember: we are not natural beings but supernatural beings.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “A columnist on the Daily News said that to Ravelstein money was something you threw from the rear platform of speeding trains.”

354. “A columnist on the Daily News said that to Ravelstein money was something you threw from the rear platform of speeding trains.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “A white December sky overly the Atlantic gloom. The message of Nature seemed to be that conditions were severe, that things were tough, very tough, and that people should console one another.”

355. “A white December sky overly the Atlantic gloom. The message of Nature seemed to be that conditions were severe, that things were tough, very tough, and that people should console one another.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “In every direction, the walls of life are tiled with such facts so that you can never account for them all, only note some of the more conspicuous ones.”

356. “In every direction, the walls of life are tiled with such facts so that you can never account for them all, only note some of the more conspicuous ones.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “That meeting in the bank you believe in,” my wife, Rosamund, the real wife, later said, after I had described the moment to her. “Why would it be always the worst things which appear to you so real? Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to talk you out of being sadistic to yourself.”

357. “That meeting in the bank you believe in,” my wife, Rosamund, the real wife, later said, after I had described the moment to her. “Why would it be always the worst things which appear to you so real? Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to talk you out of being sadistic to yourself.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Korzybski, Aristotle, Freud, W. H. Sheldon, and all the great poets.”

358. “Korzybski, Aristotle, Freud, W. H. Sheldon, and all the great poets.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “The good are attracted by men’s perceptions and think not for themselves. You must cleanse the gates of vision by self-knowledge, by experience. Besides which, opposition is true friendship. So they tell me.”

359. “The good are attracted by men’s perceptions and think not for themselves. You must cleanse the gates of vision by self-knowledge, by experience. Besides which, opposition is true friendship. So they tell me.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “His taste in clothes was horrible, but he didn’t buy cheap things. He wore corduroy or velvet shirts from Clyde’s, painted neckties, striped socks.”

360. “His taste in clothes was horrible, but he didn’t buy cheap things. He wore corduroy or velvet shirts from Clyde’s, painted neckties, striped socks.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “His marriage, too, had been like that. Through such decisions somehow his life had taken form. And so, from the moment when he tasted the peculiar flavor of fatality in Dr. Tamkin, he could no longer keep back the money.”

361. “His marriage, too, had been like that. Through such decisions somehow his life had taken form. And so, from the moment when he tasted the peculiar flavor of fatality in Dr. Tamkin, he could no longer keep back the money.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “He had on a double-breasted suit of the type then known as the pillbox; it was chalk-striped, pink on blue; the trousers hugged his ankles.”

362. “He had on a double-breasted suit of the type then known as the pillbox; it was chalk-striped, pink on blue; the trousers hugged his ankles.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Those are the only two classes of people there are. Some want to live, but the great majority don’t.”

363. “Those are the only two classes of people there are. Some want to live, but the great majority don’t.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “But then why shouldn’t he write the dead? He lived with them as much as with the living – perhaps more; and besides, his letters to the living were increasingly mental, and anyway, to the Unconscious, what was death? Dreams did not recognize it.”

364. “But then why shouldn’t he write the dead? He lived with them as much as with the living – perhaps more; and besides, his letters to the living were increasingly mental, and anyway, to the Unconscious, what was death? Dreams did not recognize it.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “You were lucky even then to make yourself understood. And this happened over and over and over with everyone you met. You had to translate and translate, explain and explain, back and forth, and it was the punishment of hell itself not to understand or be understood, not to know the crazy from the sane, the wise from the fools, the young from the old or the sick from the well.”

365. “You were lucky even then to make yourself understood. And this happened over and over and over with everyone you met. You had to translate and translate, explain and explain, back and forth, and it was the punishment of hell itself not to understand or be understood, not to know the crazy from the sane, the wise from the fools, the young from the old or the sick from the well.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “To have assumed, for instance, that the deterioration of language and its debasement was tantamount to dehumanization led straight to cultural fascism.”

366. “To have assumed, for instance, that the deterioration of language and its debasement was tantamount to dehumanization led straight to cultural fascism.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Oh, my body, my body! Why have we never really got together as friends? I have loaded it with my vices, like a raft, like a barge.”

367. “Oh, my body, my body! Why have we never really got together as friends? I have loaded it with my vices, like a raft, like a barge.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “In full tumult the great afternoon current raced for Columbus Circle, where the mouth of midtown stood open and the skyscrapers gave back the yellow fire of the sun.”

368. “In full tumult the great afternoon current raced for Columbus Circle, where the mouth of midtown stood open and the skyscrapers gave back the yellow fire of the sun.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Because of unhappiness, at a certain age, the brain starts to die back.”

369. “Because of unhappiness, at a certain age, the brain starts to die back.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “So deformity has overtaken love and love is a power that can’t let us alone. It can’t because we owe our existence to acts of love performed before us, because love is a standing debt of the soul.”

370. “So deformity has overtaken love and love is a power that can’t let us alone. It can’t because we owe our existence to acts of love performed before us, because love is a standing debt of the soul.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “With a little luck, you discover that the people in your life, permanently placed, are able to follow your innermost, deeply concealed motives.”

371. “With a little luck, you discover that the people in your life, permanently placed, are able to follow your innermost, deeply concealed motives.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Affable! His own son, his one and only son, could not speak his mind or ease his heart to him.”

372. “Affable! His own son, his one and only son, could not speak his mind or ease his heart to him.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “He meditated on his weakness.”

373. “He meditated on his weakness.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Nine-tenths of modern innocence is little more than indifference to vice, a resolve not to be affected by all that you might read, hear, or see.”

374. “Nine-tenths of modern innocence is little more than indifference to vice, a resolve not to be affected by all that you might read, hear, or see.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “You burn the house to roast the pig.”

375. “You burn the house to roast the pig.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “His intellect would have been more effective if he had had an aggressive paranoid character, eager for power. He was jealous but not exceptionally competitive, not a true paranoiac.”

376. “His intellect would have been more effective if he had had an aggressive paranoid character, eager for power. He was jealous but not exceptionally competitive, not a true paranoiac.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “I brought all this on myself by telling Ramona the story of my life – how I rose from humble origins to complete disaster. But a man who has made so many mistakes can’t afford to ignore the corrections of his friends. Friends like Sandor, that humped rat. Or like Valentine, the moral megalomaniac and prophet in Israel. To all such, one is well advised to listen. Scolding is better than nothing. At least it’s company.”

377. “I brought all this on myself by telling Ramona the story of my life – how I rose from humble origins to complete disaster. But a man who has made so many mistakes can’t afford to ignore the corrections of his friends. Friends like Sandor, that humped rat. Or like Valentine, the moral megalomaniac and prophet in Israel. To all such, one is well advised to listen. Scolding is better than nothing. At least it’s company.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Now: the first requirement of stability in a human being was that the said human being should really desire to exist. This is what Spinoza says.”

378. “Now: the first requirement of stability in a human being was that the said human being should really desire to exist. This is what Spinoza says.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “I was beginning to think that my bag was lost when I saw it wobbling, solitary, on the long, long line of rollers. It came towards me like an uncorseted woman sauntering over cobblestones.”

379. “I was beginning to think that my bag was lost when I saw it wobbling, solitary, on the long, long line of rollers. It came towards me like an uncorseted woman sauntering over cobblestones.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “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?”

380. “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?”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “You must take your chance on what you are. And you can’t sit still. I know this double poser, that if you make a move you may lose but if you sit still you will decay. But what will you lose? You will not invent better than God or nature or turn yourself into the man who lacks no gift or development before you make the move. This is not given to us.”

381. “You must take your chance on what you are. And you can’t sit still. I know this double poser, that if you make a move you may lose but if you sit still you will decay. But what will you lose? You will not invent better than God or nature or turn yourself into the man who lacks no gift or development before you make the move. This is not given to us.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “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.”

382. “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.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “But oh, unreality! Unreality, unreality! That has been my scheme for a troubled but eternal life.”

383. “But oh, unreality! Unreality, unreality! That has been my scheme for a troubled but eternal life.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “That’s from the Middle Ages.’ My God! We have a name for everything except what we really think and feel.”

384. “That’s from the Middle Ages.’ My God! We have a name for everything except what we really think and feel.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “I will do no more to enact the peculiarities of life. This is done well enough without my special assistance.”

385. “I will do no more to enact the peculiarities of life. This is done well enough without my special assistance.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “No, it was me. I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t stay. Somebody had to take the initiative. I did. Now I’m the fall guy too.”

386. “No, it was me. I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t stay. Somebody had to take the initiative. I did. Now I’m the fall guy too.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “But I wasn’t inclined to go out of my way to defer to so many critics. I had a good grasp of reality and of my defects. I permanently kept in mind the approach of Death, who might at any time loom up before you.”

387. “But I wasn’t inclined to go out of my way to defer to so many critics. I had a good grasp of reality and of my defects. I permanently kept in mind the approach of Death, who might at any time loom up before you.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Now I was too old to be a pupil, and Ravelstein didn’t believe in adult education. It was far too late for me to Platonize. And what people called culture was nothing but a fancier term for their ignorance.”

388. “Now I was too old to be a pupil, and Ravelstein didn’t believe in adult education. It was far too late for me to Platonize. And what people called culture was nothing but a fancier term for their ignorance.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Of course, I have known for a long time that we have inherited a mad fear of being slighted or scorned, an exacerbated “honor.” It is not quite the duelist’s madness of a hundred years ago, but we are a people of tantrums nevertheless. A word exchanged in a movie or some other crowd, and we are ready to fly at one another.”

389. “Of course, I have known for a long time that we have inherited a mad fear of being slighted or scorned, an exacerbated “honor.” It is not quite the duelist’s madness of a hundred years ago, but we are a people of tantrums nevertheless. A word exchanged in a movie or some other crowd, and we are ready to fly at one another.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “The lawyers – see? – draw up an agreement, and she says okay on Monday and wants more money on Tuesday. And it begins again.”

390. “The lawyers – see? – draw up an agreement, and she says okay on Monday and wants more money on Tuesday. And it begins again.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “She was a bathing beauty – short, the usual breasts, hips, and smooth thighs.”

391. “She was a bathing beauty – short, the usual breasts, hips, and smooth thighs.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “But I have had visions of judgment. I see mainly the obstinacy of cripples. We do not love ourselves, but persist in stubbornness. Each man is stubbornly, stubbornly himself.”

392. “But I have had visions of judgment. I see mainly the obstinacy of cripples. We do not love ourselves, but persist in stubbornness. Each man is stubbornly, stubbornly himself.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “For knowledge of death makes us wish to extend our lives at the expense of others. And this is the root of the struggle for power.”

393. “For knowledge of death makes us wish to extend our lives at the expense of others. And this is the root of the struggle for power.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “It’s the hysterical individual who allows his life to be polarized by simple extreme antitheses like strength – weakness, potency – impotence, health – sickness.”

394. “It’s the hysterical individual who allows his life to be polarized by simple extreme antitheses like strength – weakness, potency – impotence, health – sickness.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “His friend, his former friend, Valentine, and his wife, his ex-wife Madeleine, had spread the rumor that his sanity had collapsed.”

395. “His friend, his former friend, Valentine, and his wife, his ex-wife Madeleine, had spread the rumor that his sanity had collapsed.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible.”

396. “Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “But can thought wake you from the dream of existence? Not if it becomes a second realm of confusion, another more complicated dream, the dream of intellect, the delusion of total explanations.”

397. “But can thought wake you from the dream of existence? Not if it becomes a second realm of confusion, another more complicated dream, the dream of intellect, the delusion of total explanations.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “He was the obscure failure of an aggressive and powerful clan.”

398. “He was the obscure failure of an aggressive and powerful clan.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “I believe Uncle’s intuition to have been that plants functioned as sense organs, collecting cosmic data for the earth itself.”

399. “I believe Uncle’s intuition to have been that plants functioned as sense organs, collecting cosmic data for the earth itself.”

— Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow Quote: “Hearts quaking with cheap and feeble charity or oozing potato love have not written history.”

400. “Hearts quaking with cheap and feeble charity or oozing potato love have not written history.”

— Saul Bellow

Quotes About Writing

Quotes About Writing

Firsts Quotes

Thought Provoking Quotes

Thought Provoking Quotes

Reading Quotes

Fun Quotes

PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT

Quotes About Writing

Quotes About Writing

BOOKS WRITING READING

Firsts Quotes

Thought Provoking Quotes

Thought Provoking Quotes

THOUGHT-PROVOKING

Reading Quotes

READING

Fun Quotes

Country Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

POSITIVITY

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

SCIENCE LIFE

Startup Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Jobs Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS APPLE

QUOTE TEXT

— ,

Close

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 500 Saul Bellow Quotes.

All the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters, and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.

Learn more

Browse by:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

hello@quotefancy.com

Terms of use Privacy policy Quote Maker Contact us

© 2026 Quotefancy. All rights reserved.