A Quote by Colm Toibin

Roth Unbound is filled with intelligent readings and smart judgments. Because of the author's sympathy and sharp mind, it offers real insight into the creative process itself, and into Philip Roth's high calling as a great American artist. The book is, in some ways, a radical rereading of Roth's life and his work. It is impossible, by the end, not to feel a tender admiration for Roth as a novelist and indeed for Claudia Roth Pierpont as an empathetic and brilliant critic.

Colm Toibin

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Admiration American Artist Author Because Book Brilliant Calling Claudia Creative Creative Process Critic Empathetic End Feel Filled Great Great American High His Impossible Indeed Insight Intelligent Itself Judgments Life Mind Novelist Offers Philip Process Radical Real Rereading Sharp Smart Some Sympathy Tender Unbound Ways Work

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Colm Toibin
Irish - Novelist
Born: May 30, 1955

Philip Roth has made a cottage industry of unlikable characters, but compared with Mickey Sabbath, the furious and profane protagonist of 'Sabbath's Theater,' Roth's earlier creations seem like Winnie the Pooh.

Ben Dolnick

Phillip Roth uses his Black women characters to make anti intellectual remarks about Black history month, begun by a man who reached intellectual heights that Roth will never attain. Roth is a petty bigot and his ignorant remarks about black culture expose him as a buffoon to scholars the world over.

Ishmael Reed

To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth. Ivory is the soap that floats; Rice Krispies the breakfast cereal that goes snap-crackle-pop; Philip Roth the Jew who masturbates with a piece of liver.

Philip Roth

A public relations firm said that rock star David Lee Roth owes them over $110,000. The strange thing is that it's the first time that David Lee Roth has had any publicity in ten years.

Conan O'Brien

It wasn't until the fourth or fifth Van Halen record that people would go, 'Wow! You're singing backgrounds on those records. That's not David Lee Roth.' And I go, 'Hell, no! That's not David Lee Roth.'

Michael Anthony

If you were placing bets on which author would write the tenderest, most moving book about fatherhood, Philip Roth would probably come in at the bottom of the list.

Ben Dolnick

The Humbling is not vintage Roth, despite its compelling premise. The bizarre series of episodes -- mostly sexual encounters with women -- which make up this short novel don't play to Roth's strengths. (...) The Humbling disappoints because it avoids these universal implications, and veers off into a baroque world of the unique and fantastic, never quite deigning to make its world concrete or to give its characters the honour of an independent will.

Philip Hensher

It was really great to be part of the Philip Roth story as a woman in a very complete way.

Sarah Gadon

I loved this smart, funny, big-hearted novel. As hilarious and wise as early Philip Roth, The Mathematician's Shiva will delight and move you.

Steven Strogatz

There are some novelists who can get away with writing about sex - Philip Roth, Ian McEwan - but they are rare.

Ruth Rendell

I like Philip Roth, John Updike, and Richard Yates.

Roy Hodgson

Philip Roth is a good writer, but I wouldn't want to shake hands with him.

Jacqueline Susann

I'm more interested than Philip Roth in understanding women, even if I do it imperfectly. But that book, Portnoy's Complaint, is literary punk in this way that is rare.

Karan Mahajan

To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman. And I had done many of the things she might have done: I had engineered a most unlikely prom coupling. I had quieted the hounds of caste warfare. I had come to feel comfortable inside the rat-infested haunted house where she did her best thinking. I had seen. I had listened. But I could not yet become the wounded person.

John Green

At one point I would read nothing that was not by the great American Jews - Saul Bellow, Philip Roth - which had a disastrous effect of making me think I needed to write the next great Jewish American novel. As a ginger-haired child in the West of Ireland, that didn't work out very well, as you can imagine.

Kevin Barry

Philip Roth has been a huge influence on me. The early books I read in my teens and twenties.

Nathan Englander

A Quote by Colm Toibin

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