Quote

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

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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
Interested
Beneath
Truly
Manners
Special
Separate
Others
Pleasant
Matter
Appear
Children
Surface
Fooled
Kind
Neither
Variation
People
Exciting
Gracious

More quotes by William Saroyan

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I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.
William Saroyan
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Of all the things I love to taste, sweetest is the kiss of love.
William Saroyan
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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
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Human greatness is a rather difficult thing to account for, and more often than not one is mistaken in one's hunches about somebody one has met.
William Saroyan
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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
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I never knew teachers are human beings like everybody else-- and better too!
William Saroyan
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Each book can make a life or a fragment of it more beautiful.
William Saroyan
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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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To Armenians, half Armenians, quarter Armenians, and one-eight Armenians. Sixteen and thirty-second Armenians, and other winners, are likelier to be happy with a useful book
William Saroyan
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San Francisco is a world to explore. It is a place where the heart can go on a delightful adventure.
William Saroyan
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All things lie dark in possibility.
William Saroyan
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What can I tell you, except the stupid little I know?
William Saroyan
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The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I am the only comfort I have, excepting perhaps streets, clouds, the sun, the faces and voices of kids and the aged, and similar accidents of beauty, innocence, truth and loneliness.
William Saroyan
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Live, for this is the time of your life.
William Saroyan
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I took to writing at an early age to escape from meaninglessness, uselessness, unimportance, insignificance, poverty, enslavement, ill health, despair, madness, and all manner of other unattractive, natural and inevitable things.
William Saroyan
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Remember that every man is a variation of yourself
William Saroyan
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Cowards are nice, they're interesting, they're gentle, they wouldn't think of shooting down people in a parade from a tower. They want to live, so they can see their kids. They're very brave.
William Saroyan
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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
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This is what drives a young writer out of his head, this feeling that nothing is being said.
William Saroyan
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I believe in anything that works.
William Saroyan