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We are not forced into unpleasant activities. We either allow them to come about or we encourage them to come about.

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
Either
Action
Come
Unpleasant
Activities
Encourage
Forced
Allow
Activity

More quotes by 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.
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It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to be himself.
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San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth.
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Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good someone else.
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Remember that every man is a variation of yourself
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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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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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Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in the spirit.
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I believe that time, with its infinite understanding, will one day forgive me.
William Saroyan
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There could be no extreme vanity in my recognition of myself, if in fact there could be any at all.
William Saroyan
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This is what drives a young writer out of his head, this feeling that nothing is being said.
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People are people. Don't be afraid of them.
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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.
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What is a street? It is where the living weep, where the dead go off in silence to their peace.
William Saroyan
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What a lonely and silly thing it is to be an Armenian writer in America.
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In the end, today is forever, yesterday is still today, and tomorrow is already today.
William Saroyan
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Chance acquaintances are sometimes the most memorable, for brief friendships have such definite starting and stopping points that they take on a quality of art, of a whole thing, which cannot be broken or spoiled.
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.
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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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