William Saroyan Quotes

The child race is fresh, eager, interested, innocent, imaginative, healthy and full of faith, where the adult race, more often than not, is stale, spiritually debauched, unimaginative, unhealthy, and without faith.

In the time of your life, live — -so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for andy life your life touches.

The Americans have found the healing of God in a variety of things, the most pleasant of which is probably automobile drives.

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. I see it as a large thing too, only I break it into small units of one man at a time, and see it as a large and monstrous thing for each man involved. I see the war as death in one form or another for men dressed as soldiers, and all the men who survived the war, including myself, I see as men who died with their brothers, dressed as soldiers. There is no such thing as a soldier. I see death as a private event, the destruction of the universe in the brain and in the senses of one man, and I cannot see any man's death as a contributing factor in the success or failure of a military campaign.

Illness must be considered to be as natural as health.

Եթե կյանքը տխուր է, ազնիվ կամ հիմար, դրա պատճառը մարդն է: Եթե հարուստ է և գեղեցկությամբ լեցուն, ուրեմն ինքը, մարդն է այսդպիսին և ոչ թե շրջապատը: Այդպես է: Եթե որևէ բան վատ է, տգեղ կամ խեղճ, միշտ ինքը, մարդն է այդպես, և յուրաքանչյուր մարդ ինքն իր մեջ աշխարհ է: Յուրաքանչյուր մարդ մի ամբողջական աշխարհ է, որը նա կարող է վերակառուցել և սիրելի մարդկանցով բնակեցնել, եթե նրա սիրտը ընդունակ է սիրո, կամ լցնել ատելի մարդկանցով, եթե նրա սիրտը ընդունակ է ատելության:

When Ulysses saw his brother, a wonderful thing happened to his face. All the terror left his eyes, because now he was home

This is a hell of a night. I don't want to leave it just to go to sleep.

One picture is worth a thousand words. Yes, but only if you look at the picture and say or think the thousand words

You write a hit play the same way you write a flop

I watch the growth of spirit in the children who come to my class.

I am an estranged man, said the liar: estranged from myself, from my family, my fellow man, my country, my world, my time, and my culture. I am not estranged from God, although I am a disbeliever in everything about God excepting God indefinable, inside all and careless of all.

The real story can never be told. It is untellable. The real (as real) is inaccessible, being gone in time. There is no point in glancing at the past, in summoning it up, in re-examining it, except on behalf of art — that is, the meaningful-real.
(The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952))

if a man is an honest idiot. i can love him. but i cannot love a dishonest genius

Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength.