A father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between, a father whose compound of ambitions, biases, and beliefs is so unruffled by careful thinking that he isn’t as easy to escape from as he seems. Limited men with limitless energy; men quick to be friendly and quick to be fed up; men for whom the most serious thing in life is to keep going despite everything. And we were their sons. It was our job to love them. . Philip Roth
About This Quote

Anyone who is a father and has children can see that there are certain things that fathers just do because it is their duty. They also understand that fathers have certain ambitions and biases in life, and they know that when fathers get angry, they can be very stubborn. This quote describes these things. The idea of fathers being complicated and hard to understand is one that many people think about when they think about their own fathers. Some children can be confused by their fathers, but most children learn to respect and admire them.

Source: American Pastoral

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More Quotes By Philip Roth
  1. 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.

  2. You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you...

  3. Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.

  4. I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I...

  5. That can happen when people die, the argument with them drops away and people so flawed while they were drawing breath that at times they were all but unbearable now assert themselves in the most appealing way, and what was least to your liking the...

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