Alvin didn't cry, didn't curse, didn't holler.... He was too far gone to roar on that day or even to crack. Only I did.... Only I cracked, alone, later in the one place in our house where I knew I could go to be apart from the living and all that they cannot not do. - Philip Roth
My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets —no, they're little gifts, containing meanings! - Philip Roth
In America everything goes and nothing matters, while in Europe nothing goes and everything matters. - Philip Roth
She thinks, I'm telling him who I am. He's interested in who I am. That is true, but I am curious about who she is because I want to fuck her. - Philip Roth
Because history is not the background—history is the stage! And you are on the stage! Oh, how sickening is your appalling ignorance of your own times! - Philip Roth
Don't judge it. Just write it. Don't judge it. It's not for you to judge it.Interview in Esquire Magazine 10/10 - Philip Roth
Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre. - Philip Roth
If you read the novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel really - Philip Roth
Every man's endeavor was imbued with responsibility - Philip Roth
yEvery man's endeavor was imbued with responsibility - Philip Roth
One’s story isn’t a skin to be shed— it’s inescapable, one’s body and blood. You go on pumping it out till you die, the story veined with the themes of your life, the ever-recurring story that’s at once your invention and the invention of you. - Philip Roth