Gertrude Stein Quotes

You will write if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take place
between the pen and the paper, not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting...

It will come if it is there and if you will let it come.

Just before she Gertrude Stein died she asked, `What is the answer?' No answer came. She laughed and said, `In that case, what is the question?

I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.

It always did bother me that the American public were more interested in me than in my work. And after all there is no sense in it because if it were not for my work they would not be interested in me so why should they not be more interested in my work than in me. That is one of the things one has to worry about in America.

For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts.

I just tell you and though I dont sound like it I've got plenty of sense, there aint any answer, there aint going to be any answer, there never has been any answer, that’s the answer.

In tender hearted natures, those that mostly never feel strong passion, suffering often comes to make them harder. When these do not know in themselves what it is to suffer, suffering is then very awful to them and they badly want to help everyone who has to suffer, and they have a deep reverence for anybody who knows really how to always suffer. But when it comes to them to really suffer, they soon begin to lose their fear and tenderness and wonder. Why it isn't so very much to suffer, when even I can bear to do it. It isn't very pleasant to be having all the time, to stand it, but they are not so much wiser after all, all the others just because they know too how to bear it.

One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come.

The thing that is most interesting about government servants is that they believe what they are supposed to believe, they really do believe what they are supposed to believe.

Asparagus in a lean in a lean is to hot. This makes it art and it is wet weather wet weather wet

Explanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear. Now this is a simple thing that anybody who has ever argued or quarreled knows perfectly well is a simple thing, only when they read it they do not understand it because they do not see that understanding and believing are not the same thing.

I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.

Some one who was living was almost always listening. Some one who was loving was almost always listening.

Anything scares me, anything scares anyone but really after all considering how dangerous everything is nothing is really very frightening.

Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.