"The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress."
"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!"
8 likes
Source: Portnoy's Complaint. Book by Philip Roth, 1969.
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Philip Roth
"Only in America, Rabbi Golden, do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedalpushers and mink stoles - and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn't their fault they were given a gift like speech - look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic."
"I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists."
"He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense."
"You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you."
"Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre."