William, Saroyan Quotes & Sayings

I saw rich beggars and poor beggars, proud beggars and humble beggars, fat beggars and thin beggars, healthy beggars and sick beggars, whole beggars and crippled beggars, wise beggars and stupid beggars. I saw amateur beggars and professional beggars. A professional beggar is a beggar who begs for a living. — William, Saroyan

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

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

You abandon most readily those works that have no destination other than your own wishes; there is no editor or producer standing there waiting for them ... I've told every young writer I know to do the job all the way through even if they think it's no good. Then they'll have the precedent of having finished work. — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

Love doesn't have to be perfect. Even perfect, it is still the best thing there is, for the simple reason that it is the most common and constant truth of all, of all life, all law and order, the very thing which holds everything together, which permits everything to move along in time and be its wonderful or ordinary self. — 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

I believe in anything that works. — William, Saroyan

The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy - the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops. — William, Saroyan

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

I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

This sense of being out of time has driven thousands of people from their homes into moving-picture theaters where new universes appear before them, with emphasis on man and his major problem: a thing called, conveniently, love. The Sunday midnight shows do a thriving business, and the people go back to their homes, sick with the sickness of frustration; it is this that makes the city so interesting at night: the people emerging from the theaters, smoking cigarettes and looking desperate, wanting much, the precision, the glory, all the loveliness of life: wanting what is finest and getting nothing. It is saddening to see them, but there is mockery in the heart: one walks among them, laughing at oneself and at them, their midnight staring. — William, Saroyan

I love the bicycle. I always have. I can think of no sincere, decent human being, male or female, young or old, saintly or sinful, who can resist the bicycle. — William, Saroyan

I always know a lie when I hear it, and the effect it has on me is no good at all. I go berserk just forcing myself not to go berserk, just trying to see truth in the lie, to see it in full context, and in a dimension in which it has got to be more than just a lie, possibly the profoundest kind of truth. — William, Saroyan

I became a writer because during several of the most important years of my life, writing seemed to me to be the most unreal, unattractive, and unecessary idea ever imposed upon the human race. — William, Saroyan

Everything alive is part of each of us, and many things which do not move as we move are part of us. The sun is part of us, the earth, the sky, the stars, the rivers, and the oceans. All things are part of us, and we have come here to enjoy them and to thank God for them. — 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

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

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

In getting from Windsor to Detroit there is a choice between a free tunnel and a toll bridge, which turned out to be a short ride for a dollar, which I mentioned to the toll-collector who said, 'One of those things,' impelling me to remark to my cousin, 'Almost everything said by people one sees for only an instant is something like poetry. Precise, incisive, and just right, and the reason seems to be that there isn't time to talk prose. This suggests several things, the most important of which is probably that a writer ought not to permit himself to feel that he has all the time in the world in which to write his story or play or novel. He ought to set himself a time-limit, and the shorter the better. And he ought to do a lot of other things while he is working within this time-limit, so that he will always be under pressure, in a hurry, and therefore have neither the inclination nor the time to be fussy, which is the worst thing that happens to a book while it's being written. — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

San Francisco is a world to explore. It is a place where the heart can go on a delightful adventure. — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

Art is what is irresistible. — William, Saroyan

Of all the things I love to taste, sweetest is the kiss of love. — William, Saroyan

How can you talk if you don't say anything? I said.
You talk without words. We are always talking without words.
Well, what good are words, then?
Not very good, most of the time. Most of the time they're only good to keep back what you really want to say, or something you don't want known. — William, Saroyan

All things lie dark in possibility. — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

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

Illness must be considered to be as natural as health. — 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

There is little pride in writers. They know they are human and shall some day die and be forgotten. Knowing all this a writer is gentle and kindly where another man is severe and unkind. — William, Saroyan

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

You must remember always to give, of everything you have. You must give foolishly even. You must be extravagant. You must give to all who come into your life. Then nothing and no one shall have power to cheat you of anything, for if you give to a thief, he cannot steal from you, and he himself is then no longer a thief. And the more you give, the more you will have to give. — William, Saroyan

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

Eating cherries on a hot July afternoon in Michigan is one of the greatest things that can happen to anybody, and here it is right now - three minutes after three - happening to ME, and to you. — William, Saroyan

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

The people you like when you meet them and while you know them, and the people you remember fondly, are invariably people who have a sense of comedy, not just a sense of humor. — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

One day in the afternoon of the world, glum death will come and sit in you, and when you get up to walk, you will be as glum as death, but if you're lucky, this will only make the fun better and the love greater. — William, Saroyan

Wars, for us, are either inevitable, or created. Whatever they are, they should not wholly vitiate art. What art needs is greater men, and what politics needs is better men.
(Something About a Soldier (1940)) — William, Saroyan

When I was fifteen and had quit school forever, I went to work in a vineyard near Sanger with a number of Mexicans, one of whom was only a year or two older than myself, an earnest boy named Felipe. One gray, dismal, cold, dreary day in January, while we were pruning muscat vines, I said to this boy, simply in order to be talking, "If you had your wish, Felipe, what would you want to be? A doctor, a farmer, a singer, a painter, a matador, or what?" Felipe thought a minute, and then he said, "Passenger." This was exciting to hear, and definitely something to talk about at some length, which we did. He wanted to be a passenger on anything that was going anywhere, but most of all on a ship. — William, Saroyan

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

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

Now, what is food? Why is food so important? Why do human beings need so much of it - three times a day, every day, year after year? Why do they live on food instead of on something else? Wouldn't it be better if human beings didn't need food at all? Wouldn't it be better if they could live on air, for instance? Get stronger and bigger by breathing sea air, or the air of the mountains, or the forests, or the meadows, or the vineyards and orchards, the wheat fields, the gardens all over the world? Wouldn't that be a better way for men to stay alive?
(spoken by 10-year-old Aram Saroyan) — William, Saroyan

A poverty-stricken nation with a great art is a greater nation than a wealthy nation with a poverty-stricken art. — William, Saroyan

All of the sudden," he said, "I feel different
not like I ever felt before. Even when Papa died I didn't feel this way. In two days everything is changed. I'm lonely and I don't now what I'm lonely for — William, Saroyan

We didn't say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in. — William, Saroyan

In every house there ought to be an art table on which, one by one, things are placed, so that everybody in that house might look at the things very carefully, and see them.'
'What would you put on a table like that?'
'A leaf. A coin. A button. A stone. A small piece of torn newspaper. An apple. An egg. A pebble. A flower. A dead insect. A shoe.'
'Everybody's seen those things.'
'Of course. But nobody looks at them, and that's what art is. To look at familiar things as if they had never before been seen ... A necktie. A pocketknife ... a walnut. — William, Saroyan

All comedians are people who really deeply consider the human experience not only a dirty trick perpetrated by a totally meaningless procedure of accidents, but an unbearable ordeal every day, which can be made tolerable only by mockery in one form or another. — William, Saroyan

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

If you're alive, you can't be bored in San Francisco. If you're not alive, San Francisco will bring you to life ... San Francisco is a world to explore. It is a place where the heart can go on a delightful adventure. It is a city in which the spirit can know refreshment every day. — William, Saroyan

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

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

Morning is best when it begins with the last hours of night ... Enough of culture's hours. I am a peasant. Enough of feasting. I want hunger. Enough of fat. I want muscle. Enough of pity. I want humor. Enough of vanity. I want pride. — William, Saroyan

I have never received a telephone call that justified the excitement and fuss of the electronics involved. If I can't see somebody I love, for instance, such as a daughter, or a son, I would rather receive a letter. — William, Saroyan

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

I took to writing at an early age to escape from meaninglessness, uselessness, unimportance, insignificance, poverty, enslavement, ill health, despair, madness, and all manner of other unattractive, natural and inevitable things. — William, Saroyan

Once he saw a young girl with a small black satchel descend from a train, and she seemed so lonely and frightened that he wanted to shout to her and run down to her and smile and tell her, My name is Joe Silvera. I was born in this town, but I went away when I was seventeen and stayed away seven years. I've been back four months. I live across the street. I'm a painter. Come on up to my place and rest; I've got some wine.
All he did, though, was stare at her, and finally when she disappeared, walking down Tulare Street, he wanted very much, even then, to run down to the street and catch up with her; and a day later he wanted to look for her all over town; and a week later he wondered where she might be. — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

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

At the corner she looked suddenly far away and saw the street go straight out to the sky. She looked up to the sky and saw it go everywhere, and my, she thought, how large it is, what a large place it is. What a large world. So many different people, so many different places, close by and far away, people everywhere, places everywhere. What a fine place to be in. — William, Saroyan

I sometimes think that rich men belong to another nationality entirely, no matter what their actual nationality happens to be. The nationality of the rich. — 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

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

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

The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I am the only comfort I have, excepting perhaps streets, clouds, the sun, the faces and voices of kids and the aged, and similar accidents of beauty, innocence, truth and loneliness. — William, Saroyan

She cried a little, but only inside, because long ago she had decided she didn't like crying because if you ever started to cry it seemed as if there was so much to cry about you almost couldn't stop, and she didn't like that at all. — William, Saroyan

What can a man do to move along in some kind of grace through his days and years? — William, Saroyan

Don't tell me I'm sentimental, you sons of bitches. You are contemptible, your dishonesty is contemptible, your careful plodding with words, to keep them safely captured inside your silly little theories are contemptible, but I don't hate you, because each of you is a sad little pompous son of a bitch, with a chair at a university, and you are fighting bravely to seem to be somebody. — William, Saroyan

I don't have a name and I don't have a plot. I have the typewriter and I have white paper and I have me, and that should add up to a novel.
(- Saroyan, when once asked the name of his next book.) — William, Saroyan

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

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

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

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

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

Everything and everybody is sooner or later identified, defined, and put in perspective. The truth as always is simultaneously better and worse than what the popular myth-making has it. — William, Saroyan

I want time in which to walk quietly over the earth, among uncrazed men. I want time in which to build a house, inhabit it, create a past with meaning. I want time in which to seek and find love. I want time. I want to be unhurried, uncaught. I want time in which to sleep and waken, in which to dream the truth of my being on earth. Time. — William, Saroyan

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

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

Standing at the edge of our city, a man could feel that we had made this place of streets and dwellings in the stillness of the desert, and that we had done a brave thing ... Or a man could feel that we had made this city in the desert and that it was a fake thing and that our lives were empty lives, and that we were the contemporaries of the jack rabbits. — William, Saroyan

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