William Saroyan quotes - page 7

The real story can never be told. It is untellable. The real (as real) is inaccessible, being gone in time. There is no point in glancing at the past, in summoning it up, in re-examining it, except on behalf of art - that is, the meaningful-real. (William Saroyan)
The weakness of art is that great poems do not ennoble politics, as they certainly should, and the trouble with politics is that they inspire poets only to mockery and scorn. View quote
William Saroyan
I have been vitally aware of the Law of Opposites, and this awareness has kept me reasonably serene... the drama of life... the play of truth. the quarrel of fools and frauds, male and female, the classic and the romantic, the disciplined and the free... the comic and the tragic contrasting of the opposites in all areas of possibility and on and on and on. View quote
William Saroyan
I was four years old, and had long since reasoned that it was folly to expect the big things from people. It was enough to get the little things. The biggest thing, of course, was love, the nearness of somebody you love when you need somebody to be near. View quote
William Saroyan
I was a little afraid of him; not the boy himself, but of what he seemed to be: the victim of the world. View quote
William Saroyan
It is better to be a good human being than to be a bad one. It is just naturally better. View quote
William Saroyan
Be, beget, begone. View quote
William Saroyan
Cowards are the nicest people, the most interesting, the gentlest, the most refined, the least likely to commit crimes. View quote
William Saroyan
The bicycle is a city thing, virtually useless anywhere excepting on a pavement or hard surface of some kind. Without the road it would never have been invented. It is a little mad, both in design and purpose. Two wheels held together in a frame, with a simple mechanical system enabling a forward movement for one person. View quote
William Saroyan
Going around the world on a bicycle is no longer enough -- the daredevil has got to go around the moon on a Pogo stick with one arm tied behind him if he wants to get his picture in the paper. View quote
William Saroyan
He was just a young man who'd come to town on a donkey, bored to death or something, who'd taken advantage of the chance to be entertained by a small-town kid who was bored to death, too. That's the only way I could figure it out without accepting the general theory that he was crazy. (William Saroyan)
If you can't write a decent short story because of the cold, write something else. Write anything. View quote
William Saroyan
It seemed to me that I had no right to burn a book I hadn't even read. View quote
William Saroyan
Go ahead. Fire your feeble guns. You won't kill anything. There will always be poets in the world. View quote
William Saroyan
Now, if Mr. Shaw and Mr. Saroyan are poles apart, no comparison between the two, one great and the other nothing, one a genius and the other a charlatan, let me repeat that if you must know which writer has influenced my writing when influences are real and for all I know enduring, then that writer has been George Bernard Shaw. I shall in my own day influence a young writer or two somewhere or other, and no one need worry about that. Young Shaw, hello out there. View quote
William Saroyan
In the time of your life, live-so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. View quote
William Saroyan
I don't like to see kids throw away their truth just because it isn't worth a dime in the open market. View quote
William Saroyan
He paints for the blind, and we are the blind, and he lets us see for sure what we saw long ago but weren't sure we saw. View quote
William Saroyan
You act as if you know more than I'll ever know, but I've forgotten more than you'll ever know. View quote
William Saroyan
The loneliness does not come from the War. The War did not make it. It was the loneliness that made the War. View quote
William Saroyan
I cannot see the war as historians see it. (William Saroyan)
I love Armenia and I love America and I belong to both, but I am only this: an inhabitant of the earth, and so are you, whoever you are. View quote
William Saroyan
Don't bother me, I said. I'm the night manager of this office and when I tell you something it's final. View quote
William Saroyan
Somewhere among every man's ancestors is a prince or a lord, a priest or a saint, and don't forget it. Wake up! View quote
William Saroyan
A trapeze to God, or to nothing, a flying trapeze to some sort of eternity; he prayed objectively for strength to make the flight with grace. View quote
William Saroyan