Saul Bellow on ideas

There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are, and what this life is for.

California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn’t really need. You can quote me on that.

I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, ‘To hell with you.’

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Eleanor Roosevelt1884–1962

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle384–322 BC

• Education

One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.

Victor Hugo1802–1885