Quote

You write a hit play the same way you write a flop.

William Saroyan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Saroyan
Age: 72 †
Born: 1908
Born: August 31
Died: 1981
Died: May 18
Dramatist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Writer
Fresno
California
Flop
Irony
Write
Play
Writing
Way

More quotes by William Saroyan

Image
Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play.
William Saroyan
Image
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
Image
Christmas is sights, especially the sights of Christmas reflected in the eyes of a child.
William Saroyan
Image
Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good someone else.
William Saroyan
Image
You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself.
William Saroyan
Image
There could be no extreme vanity in my recognition of myself, if in fact there could be any at all.
William Saroyan
Image
My work is writing, but my real work is being.
William Saroyan
Image
The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy-the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops
William Saroyan
Image
We didn't say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in.
William Saroyan
Image
Every man is correct in asking God why he is stuck with himself, and his rotten luck.
William Saroyan
Image
Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.
William Saroyan
Image
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
Image
I'm no Armenian. I'm an American. Well, the truth is I am both and neither. I love Armenia and I love America and I belong to both, but I am only this: an inhabitant of the earth, and so are you, whoever you are. I tried to forget Armenia but I couldn't do it.
William Saroyan
Image
There is a small area of land in Asia Minor that is called Armenia, but it is not so. It is not Armenia. It is a place. There are only Armenians, and they inhabit the earth, not Armenia, since there is no Armenia. There is no America and there is no England, and no France, and no Italy. There is only the earth.
William Saroyan
Image
When I began to wait to live I really began to wait to die.
William Saroyan
Image
What my children appear to be on the surface is no matter to me. I am fooled neither by gracious manners nor by bad manners. I am interested in what is truly beneath each kind of manners...I want my children to be people- each one separate- each one special- each one a pleasant and exciting variation of all the others
William Saroyan
Image
Americans still believe they are cut out to be successful-in everything: love, love-making, luck, luck-giving, money-making, sense-making, cancer-avoiding, clothes-wearing, car-driving, and so on.
William Saroyan
Image
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
Image
I'm not the kind of guy to knock at a door and then when the door is opened not go in.
William Saroyan
Image
Although I write in English, and despite the fact that I'm from America, I consider myself an Armenian writer. The words I use are in English, the surroundings I write about are American, but the soul, which makes me write, is Armenian. This means I am an Armenian writer and deeply love the honor of being a part of the family of Armenian wrtiters.
William Saroyan