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Gertrude Stein
126 quotes
“A writer must always try to have a philosophy and he should also have a psychology and a philology and many other things. Without a philosophy and a psychology and all these various other things he is not really worthy of being called a writer. I agree with Kant and Schopenhauer and Plato and Spinoza and that is quite enough to be called a philosophy. But then of course a philosophy is not the same thing as a style.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Frederic Prokosch in Voices: A Memoir (1983)
“From the very nature of progress, all ages must be transitional. If they were not, the world would be at a stand-still and death would speedily ensue. It is one of the tamest of platitudes but it is always introduced by a flourish of trumpets.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1894 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Form and Intelligibility," from The Radcliffe Manuscripts (1949); written in 1894 as an undergraduate at Radcliffe College
“Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Form and Intelligibility," from The Radcliffe Manuscripts (1949); written in 1895 as an undergraduate at Radcliffe College
“The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just... I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not understanding and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don’t understand.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Manuscript (1903), published in Q.E.D. Book 1, from Q.E.D., and Other Early Writings (1971)
“A beauty is not suddenly in a circle. It comes with rapture. A great deal of beauty is rapture. A circle is a necessity. Otherwise you would see no one. We each have our circle.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Circular Play," from Last Operas and Plays (1949) [written in 1920]
“It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As Eighty," from Bee Time Vine (1953, Yale University Press); written in 1923
“No sense in no sense innocence of what of not and what of delight. In no sense innocence in no sense and what in delight and not, in no sense innocence in no sense no sense what, in no sense and delight, and in no sense and delight and not in no sense and delight and not, no sense in no sense innocence and delight.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Are There Arithmetics" (28 May 1927) [written in 1923]
“Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso (1923). First published in Vanity Fair.
“One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (22 May 1925), published in Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up (1945)
“Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This phrase was used as the title of a work published in 1931, but was originally used in Ch. LXII of A Novel of Thank You, written in 1925-1926, but not published until 1958 by the Yale University Press
“All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation... You have no respect for anything. You drink yourselves to death.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement quoted by Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast (1964) Ch. 3, it had also provided the epigraph to The Sun Also Rises (1926).
“When I sleep I sleep and do not dream because it is as well that I am what I seem when I am in my bed and dream.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded (1931)
“Let me listen to me and not to them May I be very well and happy May I be whichever they can thrive Or just may they not. They do not think not only only But always with prefer And therefore I like what is mine For which not only willing but willingly Because which it matters. They find it one in union. In union there is strength.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stanzas in Meditation (1932) Stanza VII
“It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What Is English Literature?" (1935)
“The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)
“All the world knows how to cry but not all the world knows how to sigh. Sighing is extra.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)
“I just tell you and though I dont sound like it I've got plenty of sense, there aint any answer, there aint going to be any answer, there never has been any answer, that’s the answer.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brewsie and Willie (1946), Ch. 7
“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reflections on the Atom Bomb (1946)
“We are always the same age inside.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1455 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) edited by Clifton Fadiman, p. 946
“Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Libretto for the opera The Mother Of Us All by Virgil Thomson (1947), from Last Operas and Plays (1949)
“Ladies there is no neutral position for us to assume.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Libretto for the opera The Mother Of Us All by Virgil Thomson (1947), from Last Operas and Plays (1949)
“Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Thornton Wilder, interview (December 14-15, 1956) with Richard Goldstone, The Paris Review: Writers at Work, First Series (1958)
“What is the answer?" [ I was silent ] "In that case, what is the question?”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last words (27 July 1946) as told by Alice B. Toklas in What Is Remembered (1963)
“It bothers a lot of people, but like you said, it's nobody's business, it came from the Judeo-Christian ethos, especially Saint Paul the bastard, but he was complaining about youngsters who were not really that way, they did it for money, everybody suspects us or knows but nobody says anything about it.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stein's comment about homosexuality and homophobia, from a conversation with Samuel Steward recounted in Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (1977)
“Human nature, human nature acts as it acts when it is identified when there is an identity but it is not human nature that has anything to do with that it is that anybody is there where they are, it is that that has to do with identity, with government and propaganda with history with individualism and with communism but it has nothing nothing to do with the human mind … because the human mind writes what there is and what has identity go to do with that … nothing at all.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Really Reading Gertrude Stein : A Selected Anthology with essays (1989) by Judy Grahn (Crossing Press , p. 253
“I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Red Rabbit : A novel (2002) by Tom Clancy, p. 153
“They were regular in being gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, they learned many little things that are things in being gay, they were gay every day, they were regular, they were gay, they were gay the same length of time every day, they were gay, they were quite regularly gay.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This story about two lesbians, written in 1911, and published in Vanity Fair magazine in July 1923, is considered to be the origin of the use of the term "gay" for "homosexual", though it was not used in this sense in t…
“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This statement, written in 1913 and first published in Geography and Plays, is thought to have originally been inspired by the work of the artist Sir Francis Rose; a painting of his was in her Paris drawing-room.
“I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only way that I can do it. Everybody is a real one to me, everybody is like some one else too to me. No one of them that I know can want to know it and so I write for myself and strangers.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Repeating then is in every one, in every one their being and their feeling and their way of realizing everything and every one comes out of them in repeating. More and more then every one comes to be clear to some one.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We all begin well, for in our youth there is nothing we are more intolerant of than our own sins writ large in others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves; but we grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins the really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a charm to any character, and so our struggle with them dies away.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Romance is everything.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suppose no one asked a question, what would be the answer.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To know to know to love her so. Four saints prepare for saints.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Four Saints in Three Acts (1927)
“A saint is one to be for two when three and you make five and two and cover. A at most. Saint saint a saint.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Four Saints in Three Acts (1927)
“Pigeons on the grass alas. Pigeons on the grass alas. Short longer grass short longer longer shorter yellow grass. Pigeons large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass alas pigeons on the grass.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Four Saints in Three Acts (1927)
“I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Remarks are not literature.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding any one.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I said. "A rose is a rose is a rose." And then later made that into a ring I made poetry and what did I do? I caressed completely caressed and addressed a noun.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A master-piece … may be unwelcome but it is never dull.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you do not remember while you are writing, it may seem confused to others but actually it is clear and eventually that clarity will be clear, that is what a master-piece is, but if you remember while you are writing it will seem clear at the time to any one but the clarity will go out of it that is what a master-piece is not.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing could bother me more than the way a thing goes dead once it has been said.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Picasso once remarked I do not care who it is that has or does influence me as long as it is not myself.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you are writing before there is an audience anything written is as important as any other thing and you cherish anything and everything that you have written. After the audience begins, naturally they create something that is they create you, and so not everything is so important, something is more important than another thing.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The difference between a thinker and a newspaperman is that a thinker enters right into things, a newspaperman is superficial.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source