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Philip Roth Quotes

American - Novelist | March 19, 1933 - May 22, 2018

I don't ask writers about their work habits. I really don't care.

Work Care Ask Habits About Really

My traducers propound my alleged malefaction as though I have spewed venom on women for half a century. But only a madman would go to the trouble of writing 31 books in order to affirm his hatred.

Women Writing Trouble Go Hatred

As for the kind of writer I am? I am who I don't pretend to be.

I Am Kind Pretend Who Writer Am

As I see it, my focus has never been on masculine power rampant and triumphant but rather on the antithesis: masculine power impaired.

Power Focus Never See I See Been

At night, I read. I read for two hours. I just finished a marvelous book by Louise Erdrich, 'The Round House.' But mostly I read 20th-century history and biography. I lived then. I was either a child or at school or at work.

Work History School Child Night Two

Making fake biography, false history, concocting a half-imaginary existence out of the actual drama of my life is my life.

Life History Fake My Life Drama Out

Of course you bank on your experience, but as a sounding board. It isn't that you write down what happens to you every day. You wouldn't be a writer if you did that.

Experience Day You Every Day Down

Let me tell you about the nap. It's absolutely fantastic. When I was a kid, my father was always trying to tell me how to be a man. And he said - I was maybe nine - he said, 'Philip, whenever you take a nap, take your clothes off and put a blanket over you, and you're going to sleep better.' Well, as with everything, he was right.

Father Man Sleep Me Better Clothes

I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did, and it's done. There's more to life than writing and publishing fiction. There is another way entirely, amazed as I am to discover it at this late date.

Life I Am Writing Late Desire Done

The novelist's obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right next word.

Moment Language Finding Right Next

If I don't measure up as an American writer, at least leave me to my delusion.

Me American Measure Leave Up Writer

You write differently in each book. It may appear to be similar to readers, but you're a different writer in each book because you haven't approached that subject before. And every subject brings out a different prose strain in you. Fundamentally, yes, you're contained as one writer. But you have various voices. Like a good actor.

Good Book You Actor Write Out

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