The quotations of

Philip Roth

American novelist

1933–2018

8 quotes, most often on Writing.

I write fiction and I’m told it’s autobiography, I write autobiography and I’m told it’s fiction, so since I’m so dim and they’re so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn’t.
Deception: A Novel (1990)
- Writing
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.
Deception: A Novel (1990)
- Writing
When you publish a book, it’s the world’s book. The world edits it.
“A Visit with Philip Roth,” interview with James Atlas, The New York Times Book Review (2 September 1979), p. BR1
- Writing
All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self.
The Counterlife (1986), Ch. 5
- Philosophy
The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
The Human Stain (2000)
- Truth & Lies
Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.
The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography (1988), opening letter to Nathan Zuckerman
- Facts
Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?
The Counterlife (1986), Ch. 5
- Intelligence
When I was first in Czechoslovakia, it occurred to me that I work in a society where as a writer everything goes and nothing matters, while for the Czech writers I met in Prague, nothing goes and everything matters.
The Paris Review, “The Art of Fiction No. 84”, interview by Hermione Lee (1984)
- Freedom
- Writing

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