William Saroyan
William Saroyan
William Saroyanwas an American dramatist and author. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film adaptation of his novel The Human Comedy...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth31 August 1908
CityFresno, CA
sleep dying finals
The best thing we have is sleep, of course, and what is sleep except the putting aside of everything tentative for another interval of final and everlasting truth? Sleep isn't dying, but it is certainly keeping in tough with it.
ends
Nothing good ever ends.
believe i-believe i-believe-in
I believe in anything that works.
silence streets
What is a street? It is where the living weep, where the dead go off in silence to their peace.
clever war men
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.
real writing real-work
My work is writing, but my real work is being.
dream truth knowing
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....
men good-man idiot
Yes, the idiot is indeed the good man, but only because he doesn't know any better.
wise stupid humble
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.
men self luck
Every man is correct in asking God why he is stuck with himself, and his rotten luck.
understanding misunderstood said
The best that can be said for anybody is probably that you misunderstood him favorably.
hate long i-can
I can't hate for long. It isn't worth it.
art block home
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.
love kissing taste
Of all the things I love to taste, sweetest is the kiss of love.