Meandering to and fro . . .

Today is the birthday of Saul Bellow (June 10, 1915 – April 5, 2005), writer, oft referred to as one of the twentieth century's greatest authors.

Saul Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (1975), the Nobel Prize for Literature (1967), and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to have won the National Book Award three times, and the only writer to have been nominated for it six times.

"All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination. It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!" - Saul Bellow

"Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love." - Saul Bellow

"We mustn't forget how quickly the visions of genius become the canned goods of intellectuals." - Saul Bellow

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." - Saul Bellow

"Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door." - Saul Bellow

"Human beings can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned." - Saul Bellow

Trivia bit: His original birth certificate was lost when Lachine's city hall burned down in the 1920s, but he customarily celebrated his birthdate on June 10.

Bellow image source (1)