Poetry must be read to be poetry. It may be that one reader is all that I deserve. If this is so, I want that reader to be you. - William Saroyan

Writing is the hardest way of earning a living with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.

"When I was fifteen and had quit school forever, I went to work in a vineyard near Sanger with a number of Mexicans, one of whom was only a year or two older than myself, an earnest boy named Felipe. One gray, dismal, cold, dreary day in January, while we were pruning muscat vines, I said to this boy, simply in order to be talking, "If you had your wish, Felipe, what would you want to be? A doctor, a farmer, a singer, a painter, a matador, or what?" Felipe thought a minute, and then he said, "Passenger." This was exciting to hear, and definitely something to talk about at some length, which we did. He wanted to be a passenger on anything that was going anywhere, but most of all on a ship."

A poverty-stricken nation with a great art is a greater nation than a wealthy nation with a poverty-stricken art.