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It is a pity, in my opinion, that no prize exists for the writer who best refrains from adding to the world's bad books.
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
Exists
Writer
Opinion
Books
Refrains
Best
Refrain
Book
Adding
World
Prize
Pity
More quotes by William Saroyan
The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.
William Saroyan
We are not forced into unpleasant activities. We either allow them to come about or we encourage them to come about.
William Saroyan
The events of life have never fallen into the form of the short story or the form of the poem, or into any other form.Yourown consciousnessisthe only formyouneed.
William Saroyan
People are people. Don't be afraid of them.
William Saroyan
We didn't say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in.
William Saroyan
Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength.
William Saroyan
You live and die according to what goes on in yourself, which no one else can even begin to know, not even father, mother, wife, son, or daughter.
William Saroyan
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
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
How do you write? You write, man, you write, that's how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up.
William Saroyan
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
Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good someone else.
William Saroyan
All I can do is write my stories for mankind, and rest easy.
William Saroyan
The best thing we have is sleep, of course, and what is sleep except the putting aside of everything tentative for another interval of final and everlasting truth? Sleep isn't dying, but it is certainly keeping in tough with it.
William Saroyan
Writers are a fascinating breed, because there are so many kinds of them, they are made by so many circumstances, conditions, and mysteries, and there are so many ways for writing to be done.
William Saroyan
I have an idea that most of all he is running away from love, because it's too big and too demanding. He's running away from us--from you, from me, from his sister, from himself, too. Who wants to be himself, who wants to be so little, and so captured and limited?
William Saroyan
In the time of your life, liveāso 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 can a man do to move along in some kind of grace through his days and years?
William Saroyan
My work is writing, but my real work is being.
William Saroyan
All things lie dark in possibility.
William Saroyan