Philip Roth

"The intelligent ones are sick and tired already."

"Marriage is probably the greatest privilege of all."

"The reader is the one who reads."

"I am an ironist, and ironists are the ones who give you the feelings you do not want."

"All of culture is a protection against the sensible world."

"The past cannot be undone."

"You have to be a genius to understand genius."

"If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful woman has passed into and out of your life, you have missed something."

"I operate with a lot of freedom."

"Vulnerability seems to be the price of entry for any real relationship."

"The only loyalty is to oneself."

"Impotence and tyranny are so intimately connected."

"Real life is not this, but something much simpler and rougher."

"Everything that happens is a surprise to somebody."

"The great pleasure of literature is discourse."

"I don't read other contemporary writers because it might influence my writing."

"Hate is the most sincere form of engagement."

"You are not going to win the Nobel Prize in Literature."

"The truth is that I read constantly."

"People are all the same, but different."

"Success is a very complicated thing."

"The psyche is more complicated than any novel."

"I am not interested in truth as much as in probability."

"Everything is banal."

"The best stories come from one's own suffering."

"Writing is not a career, it's a vocation."

"Consciousness is the great gift of civilization."

"The problem with most people is they think."

"Autobiography is a very tricky art form."

"America is a country of contradictions."