The Dying Animal Quotes

“The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open. ”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“These girls with old gents don't do it despite the age—they're drawn to the age, they do it for the age. Why? In Consuela's case, because the vast difference in age gives her permission to submit, I think. My age and my
status give her, rationally, the license to surrender, and surrendering in bed is a not unpleasant sensation. But simultaneously, to give yourself over intimately to a much, much older man provides this sort of younger woman with authority of a kind she cannot get in a sexual arrangement with a younger man. She gets both the pleasures of submission and the pleasures of mastery.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you're not superior to sex. It's a very risky game. A man wouldn't have two-thirds of the problems he has if he didn't venture off to get fucked. It's sex that disorders our normally ordered lives.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Like all enjoyable things, you see, it has unenjoyable parts to it.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Who are the new people when you do meet them? They're the same old people in masks.
There's nothing new about them at all. They're people.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Now, I’m very vulnerable to female beauty, as you know. Everybody’s defenseless against something, and that’s it for me. I see it and it blinds me to everything else.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“The loveliest fairy tale of childhood is that everything happens in order.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Worship me, she says, worship the mistery of the bleeding goddess, and you do it. You stop at nothing. You lick it. You consume it. You digest it. She penetrates you.
What next, David? A glass of her urine. How long before you would have begged for her feces? I'm not against it because it's unhygienic.
I'm not against it because it's disgusting. I'm against it because it's falling in love. The only obession everybody wants: 'love'. People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open. She was a foreign body introduced into your wholeness. And for a year and a half you struggled to incorporate it. But you'll never be whole until you expel it. You either get rid of it or incorporate it through self-distortion.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“To those not yet old, being old means you’ve been. But being old also means that despite, in addition to, and in excess of your beenness, you still are. Your beenness is very much alive. You still are, and one is as haunted by the still-being and its fullness as by the having-already-been, by the pastness. Think of old age this way: it’s just an everyday fact that one’s life is at stake.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“No importa cuánto sepas, no importa cuánto pienses, no importa cuánto maquines, finjas y planees, no estás por encima del sexo. Es un juego muy arriesgado. Uno no tendría dos tercios de los problemas que tiene si no corriera el albur de la jodienda. El sexo es lo que desordena nuestras vidas normalmente ordenadas.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“الجسد يحوي الكثيرمن قصص الحياة تماما مثل المخ .

ــــــ إدنا أوه براين”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“إن شك المرء ، سخريته ، الإحساس السليم السياسي الثقافي ، الذي يحفظه بعيدا عن التحركات الجماعية ، كان درعا واقيا .”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“فالهاجس الوحيد الذي يرغبه كل فرد : "حب"
أيظن الناس أنهم بالوقوع في الحب يصنعون الاكتمال؟ التوحد الأفلاطوني للأرواح ؟
أعتقد خلاف ذلك .”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Bisogna fare una distinzione tra il morire e la morte. Non è tutto un morire ininterrotto. Se si è sani e ci si sente bene, è un morire invisibile. La fine, che è una certezza, non dev'essere per forza annunciata con spavalderia. No, tu non puoi capire. L'unica cosa che capisci di vecchi, quando non lo sei, è che sono stati segnati dal loro tempo. Ma capire solo questo li mummifica nel loro tempo, ed equivale a non capire nulla.Per quelli che non sono ancora vecchi, essere vecchio significa essere stato. Ma essere stato significa anche - a dispetto, in aggiunta e oltre a «essere stato» - che sei ancora. Il tuo «essere stato» è molto vivo. Tu sei ancora, e uno è ossessionato tanto dall'«essere ancora» e dalla sua pienezza quanto dall'«essere stato», del passato.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Perchè solo quando scopi riesci a vendicarti, anche se solo per un momento, di tutto ciò che non ami nella vita e di tutte le cose che nella vita ti hanno sconfitto. Solo allora sei più nettamente vivo e più nettamente te stesso. [...] Il sesso non è semplice frizione e divertimento superficiale. Il sesso è anche la vendetta sulla morte.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Maybe it's still a bit of an affront to people, to fail to abide by the old clock of life.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“When you're beguiled it helps not to think too much and just to let yourself enjoy the beguilement.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Las décadas transcurridas desde los años sesenta han llevado a cabo una notable tarea en el acabado de la revolución sexual.”
― Philip Roth, El animal moribundo

“A emoção principal, como já disse, era o desejo ardente. E ainda é. Não há alívio para esse desejo nem para a minha noção de mim mesmo como suplicante. Está claro: temo-lo quando estamos com ela e temo-lo quando estamos sem ela. Sendo assim, quem terminou? Fui eu, não indo à festa, ou foi ela ao aproveitar o facto de eu não ter ido?”
― Philip Roth, O animal moribundo

“Twist and shout, métetelo donde te quepa... eso y no La Internacional era su himno.”
― Philip Roth, El animal moribundo

“Deseas a la chica de la película porno, pero no sientes celos de quien se la está tirando, porque él se convierte en tu sustituto.”
― Philip Roth, El animal moribundo

“El sexo es lo que desordena nuestras vidas normalmente ordenadas.”
― Philip Roth, El animal moribundo

“Era bajita, tal vez mediría metro cincuenta y ocho, y se quitó el suéter y me mostró las tetas, revelando el torso adolescente de una virgen de Balthus incipientemente transgresora y, por supuesto, nos acostamos.”
― Philip Roth, El animal moribundo

“Non troppi anni fa c'era un modo prefabbricato di essere vecchi, proprio come c'era un modo prefabbricato di essere giovani. Non sono più in vigore, né l'uno né l'altro. Sul permissibile c'è stata una grande lotta; e un grande ribaltamento. Nondimeno, un uomo di settantanni dovrebbe ancora lasciarsi coinvolgere nell'aspetto carnale della commedia umana? Essere, senz'alcuna contrizione, un vecchio secolare ancora sensibile a ciò che di umanamente eccitante lo circonda? Non è la condizione che una volta era simboleggiata dalla pipa e dalla sedia a dondolo. Forse è ancora un po' un affronto, per la gente, rifiutarsi di ubbidire al vecchio orologio della vita. Capisco di non poter contare sul virtuoso rispetto degli altri adulti. Ma cosa posso farci se, per quello che mi riguarda, non ci si mette mai l'animo in pace, mai, per vecchio che uno sia?”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“«Да и откуда им взяться, новым людям? Они только с виду новые. А на самом деле всё те же старые, только надели маску. В них нет и не может быть никакой новизны. Они люди, а люди, они и есть люди!»”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Но если бы мы взялись обсудить эту проблему хотя бы с теми же собаками, наверняка узнали бы, что и в их среде встречаются — пусть и в несколько упрощенной форме — эти чудовищные извращения: персонифицированное желание, слепая привязанность, стремление к безраздельному обладанию и даже любовь.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Каждая новая выходка не прибавляет мне сил, а, напротив, отнимает последние, а я все не унимаюсь”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal

“Упадок и Возвышение Презерватива — так бы я окрестил историю сексуальности во второй половине XX столетия.”
― Philip Roth, The Dying Animal