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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

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I believe in anything that works.
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Lionel whispered because he was under the impression that it was out of respect for books, not consideration for readers.
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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.
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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.
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Christmas is sights, especially the sights of Christmas reflected in the eyes of a child.
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The Tax Collector's letters are invariably mimeographed, and all they say is that you still haven't paid him.
William Saroyan
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All I can do is write my stories for mankind, and rest easy.
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Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in the spirit.
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What a lonely and silly thing it is to be an Armenian writer in America.
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She cried a little, but only inside, because long ago she had decided she didn't like crying because if you ever started to cry it seemed as if there was so much to cry about you almost couldn't stop, and she didn't like that at all.
William Saroyan
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Yes, the idiot is indeed the good man, but only because he doesn't know any better.
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I always know a lie when I hear it, and the effect it has on me is no good at all. I go berserk just forcing myself not to go berserk, just trying to see truth in the lie, to see it in full context, and in a dimension in which it has got to be more than just a lie, possibly the profoundest kind of truth.
William Saroyan
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Remember that every man is a variation of yourself
William Saroyan
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Each book can make a life or a fragment of it more beautiful.
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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
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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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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
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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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Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play.
William Saroyan
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There's a pretty woman for ever lucky man in the world: every man in the world is a lucky man if he only knew it, so why waste time?
William Saroyan