Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint (1969)

12 Sourced Quotes

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A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die!

Philip Roth
Only in America, Rabbi Golden, do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedalpushers and mink stoles — and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn't their fault they were given a gift like speech — look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic.

Philip Roth
It's a family joke that when I was a tiny child I turned from the window out of which I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, "Momma, do we believe in winter?"

Philip Roth
... and then this amazing creature -to whom no one has ever said "Shah!" or "I only hope your children will do the same to you someday!"

Philip Roth
Doctor, my doctor, what do you say, let's put the id back in yid!

Philip Roth
My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets — no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!

Philip Roth
A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!

Philip Roth
So [said the doctor]. Now vee may perhaps to begin Yes?

Philip Roth
I'm not trying to turn you into a bourgeois, Naomi. If the bed is too luxurious, we can do it on the floor.

Philip Roth
Doctor Spielvogel, this is my life, my only life, and I'm living it in the middle of a Jewish joke! I am the son in the Jewish joke—only it ain't no joke!

Philip Roth
I am thirteen. At long last, not a cored apple. Not an empty milk bottle greased with vaseline, but a girl in a slip, with two tits and a cunt -and a mustache, but who am I to be picky.

Philip Roth
The legend engraved on the face of the Jewish nickel- on the body of every Jewish child!- not IN GOD WE TRUST, but SOMEDAY YOU'LL BE A PARENT AND YOU'LL KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE.

Philip Roth