William Saroyan quotes - page 4

I care so much about everything that I care about nothing. (William Saroyan)

To remember something or to invent something, it comes to the same thing.

William Saroyan

Art can no longer afford to be contemptuous of politics, and it appears to be time politics took a little instruction from art.

William Saroyan

Remember that every man is a variation of yourself.

William Saroyan

Each book can make a life or a fragment of it more beautiful.

William Saroyan

You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself.

William Saroyan

Sometimes the most intelligent thing is not to do anything, certainly nothing loaded with the imbecility of emotionality.

William Saroyan

What can I tell you, except the stupid little I know?

William Saroyan

At his best, things do not happen to the artist; he happens to them.

William Saroyan

In order to write all a man needs is paper and a pencil. Furthermore, when a thing has been written, it is written forever. When it is printed, nothing can stop it from being printed again and again if the thing wants to be printed again and again. I must therefore be a writer.

William Saroyan

A man cannot write a poem or a story that will transform the whole nature of man, his reality and his truth, making them greater and nobler. (William Saroyan)

My superficial manners stink and my profound manners are almost as bad.

William Saroyan

What I intended to do was to burn a half dozen of my books and keep warm, so that I could write my story, but when I looked around for titles to burn, I couldn't find any.

William Saroyan

Now, having a play on the same bill with a play by the one and only, the good and great, the impish and noble, the man and superman, George Bernard Shaw, is for me an honor, and I think a most fitting thing.

William Saroyan

It is the heart of man that I am trying to imply in this work.

William Saroyan

A writer wants what he has to say to be heard again and again. He wants it to be heard after he is dead.

William Saroyan

I loved the theaters, and even though I was hungry, I never spent money for food.

William Saroyan

Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength.

William Saroyan

There was a touch of anxiety in the whole human race about its future.

William Saroyan

My uncle jumped up from the desk, loving him more than he loved any other man in the world, and through him loving the lost nation, the multitude dead, and the multitude living in every alien corner of the world.

William Saroyan

I myself, as a person, have been influenced by many writers and many things, and my writing has felt the impact of the writing of many writers, some relatively unknown and unimportant, some downright bad. But probably the greatest influence of them all when an influence is most effective - when the man being influenced is nowhere near being solid in his own right - has been the influence of the great tall man with the white beard, the lively eyes, the swift wit and the impish chuckle. (William Saroyan)

What the hell are they all looking for? A way out. A way to the right way out. A way to leave. A way to go. A way to have had it, to have had enough of it, to be done with it. A decent way to give it all over to the giver of it all.

William Saroyan

The streets made me, and the streets stink, but I love them, for I was born in them out of flesh and I was born in them out of spirit.

William Saroyan

I had long known that there was something about me that was either violent or frightening for some reason. In certain three-sided clothing store images I had for some years come upon myself, with shock and disbelief, regret, and shame, disappointment and despair, for I am indeed clearly violent, mad, and ugly, all because of intensity of some kind, a tension, an obsession with getting everything that there was to be got, a passion, an insanity.

William Saroyan

The purpose of my life is to put off dying as long as possible.

William Saroyan

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William Saroyan

William Saroyan - Image

Occupation: Armenian-American Novelist
Born: August 31, 1908
Died: May 18, 1981
Quotes count: 207
Wikipedia: William Saroyan

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