William Saroyan > Quotes

“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

“In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.

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.”
― William Saroyan, The time of your life

“The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and 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 Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered. Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.”
― WILLIAM SAROYAN

“The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.”
― William Saroyan, My Heart's in the Highlands

“It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to be himself.”
― William Saroyan

“I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.”
― William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills

“I care so much about everything that I care about nothing”
― William Saroyan, My Heart's in the Highlands

“Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.”
― 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, Madness in the Family: Stories

“Remember that every man is a variation of yourself”
― William Saroyan

“You must not be unkind, especially when it happens that you're right.”
― William Saroyan, The Human Comedy

“I can't hate for long. It isn't worth it.”
― William Saroyan

“Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.”
― 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, The Human Comedy

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

“Each book can make a life or a fragment of it more beautiful.”
― William Saroyan

“It is simply in the nature of Armenian to study, to learn, to question, to speculate, to discover, to invent, to revise, to restore, to preserve, to make, and to give.”
― 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, Not Dying

“The writer who is a real writer is a rebel who never stops.”
― William Saroyan

“Unless a man has pity he is not truly a man. If a man has not wept at the worlds pain he is only half a man, and there will always be pain in the world, knowing this does not mean that a man shall dispair. A good man will seek to take pain out of things. A foolish man will not even notice it, except in himself, and the poor unfortunate evil man will drive pain deeper into things and spread it about wherever he goes.”
― 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.”
― William Saroyan

“What do you mean, what's the matter with him? Nothing's the matter with him, everything's the matter with him, the same as it is with everybody else. He's just fine. He gets overwhelmed now and then, and he doesn't know how to say what he feels or means, so he cries and runs off a little, trying to find out where to go, for God's sake. Where can you go?”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.”
― William Saroyan

“Cowards are nice, they're interesting, they're gentle, they wouldn't think of shooting down people in a parade from a tower. They want to live, so they can see their kids. They're very brave.”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.”
― William Saroyan, The Human Comedy

“What can I tell you, except the stupid little I know?”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“Sometimes the most intelligent thing is not to do anything, certainly nothing loaded with the imbecility of emotionality.”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant”
― William Saroyan, My Heart's in the Highlands

“People are people. Don't be afraid of them.”
― William Saroyan, The Human Comedy