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William Saroyan

184 quotes

“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 (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the great one found out about my fight with Death, and came to be near me, what good things we might all expect from being in the world. and then around daybreak I knew I had come through, and now at last fell into real sleep — alone, and proud, and alive — now more alive than ever.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was four years old, and had long since reasoned that it was folly to expect the big things from people. It was enough to get the little things. The biggest thing, of course, was love, the nearness of somebody you love when you need somebody to be near.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Armenag Saroyan was the failed poet, the failed Presbyterian preacher, the failed American, the failed theological student.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have always been a laugher, disturbing people who are not laughers, upsetting whole audiences at theatres… I laugh, that's all. I love to laugh. Laughter to me is being alive. I have had rotten times, and I have laughed through them. Even in the midst of the very worst times I have laughed.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had long known that there was something about me that was either violent or frightening for some reason. In certain three-sided clothing store images I had for some years come upon myself, with shock and disbelief, regret, and shame, disappointment and despair, for I am indeed clearly violent, mad, and ugly, all because of intensity of some kind, a tension, an obsession with getting everything that there was to be got, a passion, an insanity.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idiot is indeed the good man, but only because he doesn't know any better.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus never said anything about absurdity, and he never indicated for one flash of time that he was aware of the preposterousness of his theory about himself. And he didn't even try to make the theory understandable in terms of the reality and experience of the rest of us. For if everybody else is also not what Jesus said he was, what good is what he said?”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The boy on the Oakland porch goes to sleep upon the universe of ice and wakes up and remembers the death of his father and mother, and sees the sun.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have been vitally aware of the Law of Opposites, and this awareness has kept me reasonably serene... the drama of life... the play of truth. the quarrel of fools and frauds, male and female, the classic and the romantic, the disciplined and the free... the comic and the tragic contrasting of the opposites in all areas of possibility and on and on and on.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My work is writing, but my real work is being.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To remember something or to invent something, it comes to the same thing.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I did my best, and let me urge you to do your best, too. Isn't it the least we can do for one another?”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Going around the world on a bicycle is no longer enough -- the daredevil has got to go around the moon on a Pogo stick with one arm tied behind him if he wants to get his picture in the paper.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was afraid I might actually know him, might have known him, one of perhaps three hundred Fresno boys I had known thirty years ago, because if I *did* know him, I would have to make something of it, and this just wasn't the time for it.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before the cat tastes the fish, his whiskers must feel the head.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A prudent man does not open an umbrella for one drop of rain.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The bicycle is a city thing, virtually useless anywhere excepting on a pavement or hard surface of some kind. Without the road it would never have been invented. It is a little mad, both in design and purpose. Two wheels held together in a frame, with a simple mechanical system enabling a forward movement for one person.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cowards are the nicest people, the most interesting, the gentlest, the most refined, the least likely to commit crimes.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Aram Sevavor, I came for advice about a private matter. I came all the way from my house on L Street to your house on Van Ness Avenue, past the place where they have those red fire engines, all the way up Eye Street, where the police have their building, all the way up Forthcamp Avenue, I came, Aram Sevavor, one foot after the other, from my house to your house, I came, and now I go, I go all the way back, Aram Sevavor, because I can't remember the question I came to ask.'”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the tradition of popular oratory, Trash [a nickname] started a talk at random, moved confidently ahead in no particular direction, and, although he spoke very clearly, said nothing.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1908–1981) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Short Drive, Sweet Chariot (1966)
“I cannot see the war as historians see it. Those clever fellows study all the facts and they see the war as a large thing, one of the biggest events in the legend of the man, something general, involving multitudes. I see it as a large thing too, only I break it into small units of one man at a time, and see it as a large and monstrous thing for each man involved. I see the war as death in one form or another for men dressed as soldiers, and all the men who survived the war, including myself, I see as men who died with their brothers, dressed as soldiers. There is no such thing as a soldier. I see death as a private event, the destruction of the universe in the brain and in the senses of one man, and I cannot see any man's death as a contributing factor in the success or failure of a military campaign.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 later, 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 (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Often misquoted as "I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, …
“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 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, nor of any man be the 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 the 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 (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One day, back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke me up by tapping on the window of my room. "Aram," he said. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window. I couldn't believe what I saw. It wasn't morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know I wasn't dreaming. My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have read books about the behavior of mobs — The Mob by Le Bon, if I remember rightly, was one — about the crime in children, and the genius in them, about the greatest bodies of things, and about the littlest of them. I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself — of what I really was and would surely become — was George Bernard Shaw.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When, at the age of eighteen, I was the manager of the Postal Telegraph office at 21 Taylor Street in San Francisco, I remember having been asked by the clerk there, a man named Clifford, who the hell I thought I was. And I remember replying very simply and earnestly somewhat as follows: If you have ever heard of George Bernard Shaw, if you have ever read his plays or prefaces, you will know what I mean when I tell you that I am that man by another name. Who is he? I remember the clerk asking. George Bernard Shaw, I replied, is the tonic of the Christian peoples of the world. He is health, wisdom, and comedy, and that's what I am too. How do you figure? The clerk said. Don't bother me, I said. I'm the night manager of this office and when I tell you something it's final.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but every life shall one day end. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him. You shall know your father better as you grow and know yourself better. He is not dead, because you are alive. Time and accident, illness and weariness took his body, but already you have given it back to him, younger and more eager than ever. I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But 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 (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believed from the beginning of remembered experience that I was somebody with an incalculable potential for enlargement, somebody who both knew and could find out, upon whom demands could be made with the expectation of having them fulfilled. I felt at the same time, and pretty much constantly, that I was nothing in relation to Enormity, the Unknown, and the Unknowable. I was too vulnerable, too lacking in power, a thing of subtle reality, liable to be blown away without a moment's warning, a migrant with no meaning, no guide, no counsel, an entity in continuous transition, a growing thing whose stages of growth always went unnoticed, a fluid and flawed thing. Thus, there could be no extreme vanity in my recognition of myself, if in fact there could be any at all. I did frequently rejoice in the recognition, but I may have gotten that from some of the Protestant hymns I had heard, and knew, and had sung, such as Joy to the World. The simple fact was that if the song wasn't about me, I couldn't see how it could possibly be about anybody else, including the one I knew it was supposed to be about, and good luck to him, too.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I liked Charentz straight off, but more important than this was the feeling that I had that he was a truly great man. 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. Charentz seemed great to me, I think, because he was made of a mixture of proud virtues and amusing flaws. On the one hand, his independence of spirit was balanced by a humorous worldliness, his acute intelligence by a curiosity that frequently made him seem naive, his profoundly gentle manners by a kind of mocking mischievousness which might easily be mistaken for rudeness. But he was never rude, he was witty, and the purpose of his wit was to keep himself from the terrible condition of pomposity.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Armenian poet Yegishe Charentz, whom Saroyan met in Moscow in June, 1935.
“He paints for the blind, and we are the blind, and he lets us see for sure what we saw long ago but weren't sure we saw. He paints for the dead, to remind us that — great good God, think of it — we're alive, and on our way to weather, from the sea to the hot interior, to watermelon there, a bird at night chasing a child past flowering cactus, a building on fire, barking dogs, and guitar-players not playing at eight o'clock, every picture saying, "Did you live, man? Were you alive back there for a little while? Good for you, good for you, and wasn't it hot, though? Wasn't it great when it was hot, though?”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source