William Saroyan Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about William Saroyan

William Saroyan Quotes & Sayings

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It is a pity, in my opinion, that no prize exists for the writer who best refrains from adding to the world's bad books. — William, Saroyan

Armenag Saroyan. A good man of whom the worst that anybody was willing to say, was that he was too good for this world. — William, Saroyan

I believe that time, with its infinite understanding, will one day forgive me. — William, Saroyan

When you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough. — William, Saroyan

The whole world and every human being in it is everybody's business. — William, Saroyan

Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good as someone else. — William, Saroyan

No city invites the heart to come to life as San Francisco does. Arrival in San Francisco is an experience in living. — William, Saroyan

You must not be unkind, especially when it happens that you're right. — William, Saroyan

I used to throw things out, saying, 'This isn't great.' It didn't occur to me that it didn't have to be great. — William, Saroyan

The bicycle is the noblest invention of mankind. — William, Saroyan

Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. — William, Saroyan

Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. — William, Saroyan

All great art has madness, and quite a lot of bad art has it, too. — William, Saroyan

The order I found was the order of disorder — William, Saroyan

I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy. — Jonathan Evison

But who can speak to God, or rather who can't? The question is, who can get an answer? — William, Saroyan

Be, beget, begone. — William, Saroyan

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

When Ulysses saw his brother, a wonderful thing happened to his face. All the terror left his eyes, because now he was hom — William, Saroyan

Be grateful for yourself ... be thankful. — William, Saroyan

The Tax Collector's letters are invariably mimeographed, and all they say is that you still haven't paid him. — William, Saroyan

The writer who is a real writer is a rebel who never stops. — William, Saroyan

I see life as one life at one time, so many millions simultaneously, all over the earth. — William, Saroyan

The mad also laugh, or is that what Freud and the others discovered perhaps, that only the mad laugh? — William, Saroyan

One picture is worth a thousand words. Yes, but only if you look at the picture and say or think the thousand words — William, Saroyan

I believe in anything that works. — William, Saroyan

We get very little wisdom from success, you know. — William, Saroyan

I wanted to know her the way a bee wants to know a great bright flower. — William, Saroyan

Christmas is sights, especially the sights of Christmas reflected in the eyes of a child. — William, Saroyan

My work has always been the product of my time. — William, Saroyan

This is a hell of a night. I don't want to leave it just to go to sleep. — William, Saroyan

This was such bad writing that it was good. — William, Saroyan

In the end, today is forever, yesterday is still today, and tomorrow is already today. — William, Saroyan

Armenag Saroyan was the failed poet, the failed Presbyterian preacher, the failed American, the failed theological student. — William, Saroyan

Every man is correct in asking God why he is stuck with himself, and his rotten luck. — William, Saroyan

I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant — William, Saroyan

No enemy is so annoying as one who was a friend, or still is a friend,and there are many more of these than one would suspect. — William, Saroyan

What is a street? It is where the living weep, where the dead go off in silence to their peace. — 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

Live, for this is the time of your life. — William, Saroyan

A man's ethnic identity has more to do with a personal awareness than with geography. — William, Saroyan

It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to be himself. — William, Saroyan

Think before you speak, think twice before you shout, think three times before you go mad. — William, Saroyan

He was under the impression that he belonged wherever there was something interesting to see. — William, Saroyan

There could be no extreme vanity in my recognition of myself, if in fact there could be any at all. — William, Saroyan

I'm not the kind of guy to knock at a door and then when the door is opened not go in. — William, Saroyan

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

You live and die according to what goes on in yourself, which no one else can even begin to know, not even father, mother, wife, son, or daughter. — William, Saroyan

There's a pretty woman for ever lucky man in the world: every man in the world is a lucky man if he only knew it, so why waste time? — William, Saroyan

Kids are always the only future the human race has. — William, Saroyan

You write a hit play the same way you write a flop — William, Saroyan

Human memory works its own wheel, and stops where it will, entirely without reference to the last stop, and with no connection with the next. — William, Saroyan

The idiot is indeed the good man, but only because he doesn't know any better. — William, Saroyan

Remember that every man is a variation of yourself — William, Saroyan

He's finding out, he's doing all right, he'll go to school but nobody's going to teach him anything. — William, Saroyan

It is impossible not to notice that our world is tormented by failure, hate, guilt, and fear. — William, Saroyan

I have managed to conceal my madness fairly effectively, and as far as I know it hasn't hurt anybody badly, for which I am grateful. — William, Saroyan

Art is what is irresistible. — William, Saroyan

If I have any desire at all, it is to show the brotherhood of man. — William, Saroyan

We are not forced into unpleasant activities. We either allow them to come about or we encourage them to come about. — William, Saroyan

My work is writing, but my real work is being. — William, Saroyan

Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed. — William, Saroyan

Nothing good ever ends. — William, Saroyan

The best that can be said for anybody is probably that you misunderstood him favorably. — William, Saroyan

People are people. Don't be afraid of them. — William, Saroyan

What we want to do is keep from hindering. If it's impossible to help, it's always possible to hinder. — William, Saroyan

The Americans have found the healing of God in a variety of things, the most pleasant of which is probably automobile drives. — William, Saroyan

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness. — William, Saroyan

I care so much about everything that I care about nothing — William, Saroyan

All things lie dark in possibility. — William, Saroyan

You know the look: genius gone to pot, and ready to join the Communist Party — William, Saroyan

Human greatness is a rather difficult thing to account for, and more often than not one is mistaken in one's hunches about somebody one has met. — William, Saroyan

I can't hate for long. It isn't worth it. — William, Saroyan

Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play. — William, Saroyan

I don't think my writing is sentimental, although it is a very sentimental thing to be a human being. — William, Saroyan

Remember that in the midst of that which is most tragic there is always the comic and in the midst that which is most evil there is always much good. — William, Saroyan

There is no real freedom for the man who is in so much of a hurry that he is annoyed by the human race and by the hot glaring afternoon sun. — William, Saroyan

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. — William, Saroyan

What a people talk about means something. What they don't talk about means something. — William, Saroyan

If you give to a thief he cannot steal from you, and he is no longer a thief. — William, Saroyan

All I can do is write my stories for mankind, and rest easy. — William, Saroyan

Sunday is the day people go quietly mad, one way or another. — William, Saroyan

People is all everything is, all it has ever been, all it can ever be. — William, Saroyan

All writers are discontent. That's because they're aware of a potential and believe they're not reaching it. — William, Saroyan

The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited. — William, Saroyan

Their singing wasn't particularly good, but the feeling with which they sang was not bad at all. — William, Saroyan

The people you hate, well, this is the question about such people: why do you hate them? — William, Saroyan

Lionel whispered because he was under the impression that it was out of respect for books, not consideration for readers. — William, Saroyan

Even after you've won fame and fortune, every time you write you've got to write, there's no shortcut, you have to start your career all over again. — William, Saroyan

Give me something about bacteria. Give me something that won't make me feel so inferior — William, Saroyan

Illness must be considered to be as natural as health. — William, Saroyan

Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in the spirit. — William, Saroyan

I watch the growth of spirit in the children who come to my class. — William, Saroyan

What a lonely and silly thing it is to be an Armenian writer in America. — William, Saroyan

When I began to wait to live I really began to wait to die. — William, Saroyan

I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness. — William, Saroyan

Nobody, but nobody, is going to tell me I'm not the most. I am. I was the most when everybody else was struggling bitterly to become a little. — William, Saroyan

If I want to do anything, I want to speak a more universal language. — William, Saroyan

I believe there are ways whose ends are life instead of death. — William, Saroyan

Jack Benny had style from the beginning. He stood straight and walked kind of sideways as if he were being gently shoved by a touch of genius. — William, Saroyan