Saul Bellow

"We live in a complex age that demands complex thinking."

"The biggest mistake is thinking that you have to live up to someone else's idea of who you are."

"Civilization requires the suppression of instinct."

"To create is to struggle, and struggle is the meaning of life."

"The mind has a way of protecting itself from what it cannot bear to contemplate."

"Freedom is nothing but the ability to choose your own suffering."

"We carry our history with us; it shapes everything we do."

"The world is too much with us; we must create inner stillness."

"Nothing is more powerful than a good story told by someone who believes in it."

"To be alive is to be surrounded by mysteries you cannot solve."

"The past is always with us, whether we acknowledge it or not."

"In the end, all we have is our character and what we've done with our time."

"The worst thing that can happen to a human being is the loss of meaning."

"Life is best understood backwards but must be lived forwards."

"The purpose of the novelist is to get at the truth of human experience."

"You cannot separate the way you live from the person you become."

"The deepest desire is to be understood and accepted as you are."

"Modern life conspires to keep us from knowing ourselves."

"Every person carries a universe within them."

"The struggle to remain human in an inhuman world is the essential struggle."

"Language shapes thought; the limits of my language are the limits of my world."

"To understand another person is to love them, even if only momentarily."

"The beautiful thing about a human being is the capacity for growth."

"We all pretend to be more than we are; this is the human comedy."

"The voice of the individual is increasingly drowned out by collective noise."

"What matters is not what happens to you, but how you interpret it."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

"Education teaches you facts; wisdom teaches you meaning."

"The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of."

"To love someone is to see all of their possibilities."