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

William Saroyan

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William Saroyan
Age: 72 †
Born: 1908
Born: August 31
Died: 1981
Died: May 18
Dramatist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Writer
Fresno
California
Veterinarian
Writer
Probably
Happiness
Makes
Writing

More quotes by William Saroyan

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The child race is fresh, eager, interested, innocent, imaginative, healthy and full of faith, where the adult race, more often than not, is stale, spiritually debauched, unimaginative, unhealthy, and without faith.
William Saroyan
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It is impossible not to notice that our world is tormented by failure, hate, guilt, and fear.
William Saroyan
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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
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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
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The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.
William Saroyan
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We are not forced into unpleasant activities. We either allow them to come about or we encourage them to come about.
William Saroyan
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Lionel whispered because he was under the impression that it was out of respect for books, not consideration for readers.
William Saroyan
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Indians are born with an instinct for riding, rowing, hunting, fishing, and swimming. Americans are born with an instinct for fooling around with machines.
William Saroyan
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We didn't say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in.
William Saroyan
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My work is writing, but my real work is being.
William Saroyan
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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
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Every artist is in everything he creates, and indeed if the truth is told, every person is in his life, in his work, whatever his work may be, and this is visible in his face, figure, stance, movement, and totality.
William Saroyan
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It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to be himself.
William Saroyan
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Be grateful for yourself...be thankful.
William Saroyan
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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
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Each book can make a life or a fragment of it more beautiful.
William Saroyan
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I began to write in the first place because I expected everything to change, and I wanted to have things in writing the way they had been. Just a little things, of course. A little of my little.
William Saroyan
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People is all everything is, all it has ever been, all it can ever be.
William Saroyan
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In the end, today is forever, yesterday is still today, and tomorrow is already today.
William Saroyan
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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.
William Saroyan