Quotes from The Ghost Writer

“I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again...”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“In my childhood I led the life of a sage, when I grew up I started climbing trees”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning. And if I knock off from this routine for as long as a day, I’m frantic with boredom and a sense of waste.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“I felt as though the skin had been peeled away from half of my body. Half my face had been peeled away, and everybody would stare in horror for the rest of my life. Or they would stare at the other half, at the half still intact; I could see them smiling, pretending that the flayed half wasn't there, and talking to the half that was. And I could hear my self screaming at them, I could see myself thrusting my hideous side right up into their unmarred faces to make them properly horrified. 'I was pretty! I was whole! I was sunny, lively little girl! Look, look at what they did to me!' But whatever side they looked at, I would always be screaming, 'Look at the other! Why don't you look at the other!' That's what I thought about in the hospital at night. However they look at me, however they talk to me, however they try to comfort me, I will always be this half-flayed thing. I will never be young, I will never be kind or at peace or in love, and I will hate them all my life.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“There is his religion of art, my young successor: rejecting life! Not living is what he makes his beautiful fiction out of! And you will now be the person he is not living with!”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“Because you happen to be a writer doesn’t mean you have to deny yourself the ordinary human pleasure of being praised and applauded.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“I don’t know anybody. I turn sentences around, and that’s it.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“Great artists, as history reveals, have been harshly persecuted time and again by the frightened and ill-educated,”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“the joy of awakening each morning knowing there were all those empty hours ahead to be filled only with work.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“He winced when he stood--lumbago, he explained, from turning one too many sentences arounder that day--and said that he still his evening's reading. He did not do justice to a writer unless he read him on consecutive days and for no less than three hours at a sitting. Otherwise, despite his note taking and underlining, he lost touch with a book's inner life and might as well not have begun. Sometimes, when he unavoidably had to miss a day, he would go back and begin all over again, rather than be nagged by his sense that he was wronginger a serious author.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“No one with seven books in New York City settles for one piece of ass. That’s what you get for a couplet.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“It is not our high purposes alone that make us moving creatures, but our humble needs and cravings.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“Não poderia deixar de adorar aquele homem sem ilusões: adorar a franqueza, o escrúpulo, a severidade, o isolamento; admirar a implacável repressão do ego infantil, a insaciável busca de aperfeiçoamento; admirar a teimosia artística e a desconfiança quanto a tudo mais; admirar o encanto oculto, do qual ele acabava de me proporcionar uma rápida visão.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“It's no picnic up there in the egosphere.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“I know the kind of man I am and the kind of writer. I have my own kind of bravery, and please, let’s leave it at that.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“I'll be curious to see how we all come out someday. It could be an interesting story. You're not so nice and polite in your fiction," he said. "You're a different person.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“La gente non legge pensando all'arte: legge pensando alle persone. E le giudica per quello che sono. E come credi che giudicherà i personaggi del tuo racconto? A quali conclusioni credi che arriverà? Ci hai pensato?”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

About the author

Popular quotes

“It’s alright,” they say, “Of course, there’s beauty there,” but they hold back; you know they have seen or heard of the ugliness and the insularity there. They have experienced the farawayness of it. I have learned to keep silent, not to berate them for their disregard of the Brits’ role in the colonial tragedy of my country.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda

“Sometimes a small change could make all the difference.”
― Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, quote from The Nest

“Je... je bent een meisje!'
...
'Ik ben niet zomaar een meisje,' zei ze. 'Ik ben de dochter van de Glorie van Ra, hij die als een reus over de wereld loopt: de farao Neferhotep, de glorieuze heerser van heel Deshret... Je zou trots moeten zijn,' zei ze, terwijl ze zich met een zwaai van haar gescheurde mantel omdraaide. 'Je bent nu de slaaf van prinses Nefertiti.”
― James Rollins, quote from Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx

“coming from the far passageway that led to the smaller”
― James Rollins, quote from The Bone Labyrinth

“This is my home, Cape Breton is my home, and I don’t know if I really want to leave it as much as I might think and I’m sort of scared to leave it all behind, everything I’ve lived with, I have so many memories of all the things I’ve done here and I’m afraid if I leave, I might lose all my memories…”
― Rebecca McNutt, quote from Smog City

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.