"Writers, poets, painters, musicians, philosophers, political thinkers, to name only a few of the categories affected, must woo their readers, viewers, listeners, from distraction. To this we must add, for simple realism demands it, that these same writers, painters, etc., are themselves the children of distraction. As such, they are peculiarly qualified to approach the distracted multitudes. They will have experienced the seductions as well as the destructiveness of the forces we have been considering here. This is the destructive element in which we do not need to be summoned to immerse ourselves, for we were born to it."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesAcademics from CanadaNovelists from CanadaPeople from Montreal
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"The Distracted Public" (1990), p. 167
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Saul_Bellow
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow (10 June 1915 β 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and the National Medal of Arts in 1988.
74 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Saul Bellow β
Related Quotes
"There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniablβ¦"
"Conquered people tend to be witty."
"All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to maβ¦"
"We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make whβ¦"
"We mustn't forget how quickly the visions of genius become the canned goods of intellectuals."
"I think that New York is not the cultural center of America, but the business and administrative center of American cβ¦"
"Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door."
"Once you had read the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, you knew that everyday life was psychopathology."
"I never yet touched a fig leaf that didn't turn into a price tag."
"Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love."