Philip Roth Trying Quotations

I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don’t need that question answered.

At a certain stage of misery, you'll try anything to explain what's going on with you, even if you know it doesn't explain a thing and it's one failed explanation after another.

It seemed pretty reckless and vicious. I was just trying to depict the way it was, the way it sounded, what they talked about. This was just what I observed or imagined.

History ... is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.