"Terrific, isn't it, having this pop circus?" said Ravelstein.

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book. -- SB

From NYT:

Saul Bellow, the Nobel laureate and self-proclaimed historian of society whose fictional heroes - and whose scathing, unrelenting and darkly comic examination of their struggle for meaning - gave new immediacy to the American novel in the second half of the 20th century, died yesterday at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 89.

Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it is harder to find out how he feels. (Seize the Day)