Memories particularly of when they weren't being what parents are nine-tenths of the time, the taskmasters, the examples, the moral authorities, the nags of pick-that-up and you're-going-to-be-late, keepers of the diary of her duties and routines, memories, rather, of when they found one another afresh, beyond the tensions between parental mastery and inept childish uncertainty, of those moments of respite in a family's life when they could reach one another in calm
("American Pastoral")
More Quotes from Philip Roth:
Only in America do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedal pushers and mink stoles -- and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn't their fault they were given a gift like speech -- look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic.Philip Roth
My God The English language is a form of communication Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill Words aren't only bombs and bullets no, they're little gifts, containing meanings
Philip Roth
A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.
Philip Roth
I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface
Philip Roth
Unless one is inordinately fond of subordination, one is always at war.
Philip Roth
Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.
Philip Roth
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Based on Topics: Memory Quotes, Morality Quotes, Parents Quotes, Time Quotes, Uncertainty QuotesBased on Keywords: nags, pick-that-up, re-going-to-be-late, taskmasters
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