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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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William Saroyan
Age: 72 †
Born: 1908
Born: August 31
Died: 1981
Died: May 18
Dramatist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Writer
Fresno
California
Throw
Saying
Didn
Used
Great
Things
Occur

More quotes by 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.
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You write a hit play the same way you write a flop.
William Saroyan
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Art is what is irresistible.
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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It is impossible not to notice that our world is tormented by failure, hate, guilt, and fear.
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People is all everything is, all it has ever been, all it can ever be.
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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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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
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It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to be himself.
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I care so much about everything that I care about nothing.
William Saroyan
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Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
William Saroyan
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I have managed to conceal my madness fairly effectively, and as far as I know it hasn't hurt anybody badly, for which I am grateful.
William Saroyan
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When I began to wait to live I really began to wait to die.
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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.
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One day in the afternoon of the world, glum death will come and sit in you, and when you get up to walk, you will be as glum as death, but if you're lucky, this will only make the fun better and the love greater.
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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My work has always been the product of my time.
William Saroyan
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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
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We get very little wisdom from success, you know.
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