William Saroyan quotes - page 5

Illness is essentially discomfort, and it is not easy for anybody to be comfortable all the time... in his body, in his work, in his house, or in his soul. (William Saroyan)
The end of life evokes the errors of it, and a fellow wishes he had known better. View quote
William Saroyan
I am an estranged man, said the liar: estranged from myself, from my family, my fellow man, my country, my world, my time, and my culture. I am not estranged from God, although I am a disbeliever in everything about God excepting God indefinable, inaccessible, inside all and careless of all. View quote
William Saroyan
My illness is life itself. View quote
William Saroyan
I have long known of Mr. Shaw, read his plays and prefaces, and loved him. I admire heroic effort. Accomplishment I love. What I am about to say is no invention, and I am putting it down for whatever it may be worth to the historian of literature and for the student of influences of men on men, and because it is true and must therefore be made known. As a boy, charging pell-mell through literature, reading everything I could lay hands on in the Public Library of Fresno, I found many men to whom I felt deeply grateful - especially Guy de Maupassant, Jack London, and H. L. Mencken - but the first man to whom I felt definitely related was George Bernard Shaw. This is a presumptuous or fatuous thing to mention, perhaps, but even so it must be mentioned. View quote
William Saroyan
Art comes from the world, belongs to it, can never escape from it. View quote
William Saroyan
Boredom was the plague of my childhood. While I was at the orphanage, the boredom came from being in a place I did not wish to be. I was bored. I was bored the entire four years I was there. View quote
William Saroyan
Art and politics must move closer together. Reflection and action must be equally valid in good men if history is not to take one course and art an other. View quote
William Saroyan
A play is a world, with its own inhabitants and its own laws and its values. View quote
William Saroyan
How did roses ever happen? View quote
William Saroyan
Each person belongs to the environment, in his own person, as himself. (William Saroyan)
Neither love nor hate, nor any order of intense adherence to personal involvement in human experience, may be so apt to serve the soul as this freedom and this necessity to be kind. View quote
William Saroyan
There is much for a young writer to learn from our poorest writers. It is very destructive to burn bad books, almost more destructive than to burn good ones. View quote
William Saroyan
Three times in my life I have been captured: by the orphanage, by school, and by the Army. I was four years in the orphanage, seven or eight in school, and three in the Army. Each seemed forever, though. But I'm mistaken. The fact is I was captured only once, when I was born, only that capture is also setting free, which is what this is actually all about. The free prisoner. View quote
William Saroyan
My writing is careless, but all through it is something that is good, that is mine alone, that no other writer could ever achieve. View quote
William Saroyan
One nickel, one secret. No exchanges, no refunds. View quote
William Saroyan
I had three secrets and sold them all. View quote
William Saroyan
I am deeply opposed to violence in all its forms, and yet I myself am violent in spirit, in my quarrel with the unbeatable: myself, my daemon, God, the human race, the world, time, pain, disorder, disgrace and death. View quote
William Saroyan
Illness must be considered to be as natural as health. View quote
William Saroyan
We know more than we need to know. View quote
William Saroyan
I was an old man by the time I took that walk to the Public Library in San Francisco, because the years between birth and twenty are the years in which the soul travels farthest and swiftest. (William Saroyan)
This is a big statement and it sounds a little precious. Generally a man is ashamed to make such a statement. He is afraid sophisticated people will laugh at him. But I don't mind. I'm asking sophisticated people to laugh. That is what sophistication is for. View quote
William Saroyan
When Andranik went away... I saw that tears were in his eyes and his mouth was twisting with agony like the mouth of a small boy who is in great pain but will not let himself cry. View quote
William Saroyan
Nobody seemed to be interested in anything except making money. View quote
William Saroyan
Jim Dandy waves his stick over and around about the rock in a meaningless-meaningful way. View quote
William Saroyan