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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.

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
Human
Account
Humans
Accounts
Thing
Mets
Greatness
Somebody
Rather
Difficult
Hunches
Often
Mistaken

More quotes by William Saroyan

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The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I am the only comfort I have, excepting perhaps streets, clouds, the sun, the faces and voices of kids and the aged, and similar accidents of beauty, innocence, truth and loneliness.
William Saroyan
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All I can do is write my stories for mankind, and rest easy.
William Saroyan
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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
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The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.
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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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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People is all everything is, all it has ever been, all it can ever be.
William Saroyan
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Every man is correct in asking God why he is stuck with himself, and his rotten luck.
William Saroyan
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San Francisco is a world to explore. It is a place where the heart can go on a delightful adventure.
William Saroyan
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I used to throw things out, saying, 'This isn't great.' It didn't occur to me that it didn't have to be great.
William Saroyan
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There is little pride in writers. They know they are human and shall some day die and be forgotten. Knowing all this a writer is gentle and kindly where another man is severe and unkind.
William Saroyan
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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.
William Saroyan
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Human memory works its own wheel, and stops where it will, entirely without reference to the last stop, and with no connection with the next.
William Saroyan
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The basic truth of all things, as nearly as we may ever dream of determining and knowing this truth, is form, that which is, as it is. The way and shape of the thing no less than the thing itself.
William Saroyan
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You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself.
William Saroyan
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I took to writing at an early age to escape from meaninglessness, uselessness, unimportance, insignificance, poverty, enslavement, ill health, despair, madness, and all manner of other unattractive, natural and inevitable things.
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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I don't think my writing is sentimental, although it is a very sentimental thing to be a human being.
William Saroyan
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People are people. Don't be afraid of them.
William Saroyan
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Even after you've won fame and fortune, every time you write you've got to write, there's no shortcut, you have to start your career all over again.
William Saroyan