I needed my life as a springboard for my fiction. I have to have something solid under my feet when I write. I'm not a fantasist. I bounce up and down on the diving board, and I go into the water of fiction. But I've got to begin in life so I can pump life into it throughout.
Tags: go, my-life, water, life

Other Quotes by "Philip Roth"

For all I know, I am beginning with the ending. My page one can wind up a year later as page two hundred, if it's still even around.
Tags: ending, beginning, wind, i-am
I think I write and publish as often as I do because I can't bear being without a book to work on... I don't feel I have this to say or that to say or this story to tell, but I know I want to be occupied with the writing process while I'm living.
Tags: book, feel, think, work
Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline.
Tags: manifest, more, greed, fear
Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It's just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.
Tags: frustration, time, you, daily
I do the same kind of rewriting that I do in the shorts that I do in long books - and that is a lot. The book really comes to life in the rewriting.
Tags: books, book, long, life
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