"I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed. And then? I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed. And what next? I get laid, I take a short holiday, but very soon after I fall upon those same thorns with gratification in pain, or suffering in joy - who knows what the mixture is! What good, what lasting good is there in me? Is there nothing else between birth and death but what I can get out of this perversity - only a favorable balance of disorderly emotions? No freedom? Only impulses? And what about all the good I have in my heart - does it mean anything? Is it simply a joke? A false hope that makes a man feel the illusion of worth? And so he goes on with his struggles. But this good is no phony. I know it isn't. I swear it."

from Herzog by Saul Bellow

"Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death."

from Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

"...the world has power, and interest follows power. Where are the poets' power and interest? They originate in dream states. These come because the poets is what he is in himself, because a voice in his soul which has power equal to the power of societies, states, and regimes. You don't make yourself interesting through madness, eccentricity, or anything of the sort but because you have the power to cancel the world's distraction, activity, noise, and become fit to hear the essence of things."
from Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

"The will is a link which connects the soul to the world as-it-is. Through the will the soul frees itself from distraction and mere dreams."
from Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow