Quote

Armenag Saroyan was the failed poet, the failed Presbyterian preacher, the failed American, the failed theological student.

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
Students
American
Presbyterian
Presbyterians
Theological
Preacher
Student
Failed
Poet

More quotes by William Saroyan

Image
I believe in anything that works.
William Saroyan
Image
Everything and everybody is sooner or later identified, defined, and put in perspective. The truth as always is simultaneously better and worse than what the popular myth-making has it.
William Saroyan
Image
If you're alive, you can't be bored in San Francisco. If you're not alive, San Francisco will bring you to life......San Francisco is a world to explore. It is a place where the heart can go on a delightful adventure. It is a city in which the spirit can know refreshment every day.
William Saroyan
Image
Remember that every man is a variation of yourself
William Saroyan
Image
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
Image
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
William Saroyan
Image
All of the sudden, he said, I feel different-- not like I ever felt before. Even when Papa died I didn't feel this way. In two days everything is changed. I'm lonely and I don't now what I'm lonely for
William Saroyan
Image
Of course if you like your kids, if you love them from the moment they begin, you yourself begin all over again, in them, with them, and so there is something more to the world again.
William Saroyan
Image
It is impossible not to notice that our world is tormented by failure, hate, guilt, and fear.
William Saroyan
Image
What a lonely and silly thing it is to be an Armenian writer in America.
William Saroyan
Image
I love the bicycle. I always have. I can think of no sincere, decent human being, male or female, young or old, saintly or sinful, who can resist the bicycle.
William Saroyan
Image
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
Image
Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.
William Saroyan
Image
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
Image
Be grateful for yourself...be thankful.
William Saroyan
Image
Sometimes the most intelligent thing is not to do anything, certainly nothing loaded with the imbecility of emotionality.
William Saroyan
Image
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
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
Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
William Saroyan
Image
The Tax Collector's letters are invariably mimeographed, and all they say is that you still haven't paid him.
William Saroyan