Pura Vida

Roth, in I Married a Communist

[E]verything that lives is in movement. Because purity is petrification. Because purity is a lie. Because unless you're an ascetic paragon like Johnny O'Day or Jesus Christ, you're urged on by five hundred things. Because without the iron pole of righteousness with which the Grants clubbed their way to success, without the big lie of righteousness to tell you why you do what you do, you have to ask yourself, all along the way, 'Why do I do what I do?' And you have to endure yourself without knowing (318).

I especially like the "iron pole of righteousness" line: the assertion of knowing is, to Roth's Murry Ringold, a trap which has ultimately tricked even himself, making him "no less a historical casualty" than his brother Ira, who sought purity in the Communist Party.