Quotes by William Saroyan

About William Saroyan:

William Saroyan was 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

William Saroyan

I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.

William Saroyan

Whatever neutrality is, it is not very useful to anybody, and time is running out. If we do not do useful things whenever it is possible or necessary to do them, we shall soon be totally departed from the human scene, and forgotten, or remembered onl...

William Saroyan

The purpose of art is to give the traveling human race an improved map that shows the way to itself. If art isn't for *that*, what is it for?

William Saroyan

When I began to wait to live I really began to wait to die.

William Saroyan

The idiot is indeed the good man, but only because he doesn't know any better.

William Saroyan

All great art has madness, and quite a lot of bad art has it, too.

William Saroyan

I care so much about everything that I care about nothing

William Saroyan

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

William Saroyan

I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant

William Saroyan

The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I am the only comfort I have, excepting perhaps streets, clouds, the sun, the faces and voices of kids and the aged, and similar accid...

William Saroyan

You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself.

William Saroyan

What we want to do is keep from hindering. If it's impossible to help, it's always possible to hinder.

William Saroyan

The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy — the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitu...

William Saroyan

Although I write in English, and despite the fact that I’m from America, I consider myself an Armenian writer. The words I use are in English, the surroundings I write about are American, but the soul, which makes me write, is Armenian. This means ...

William Saroyan

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

William Saroyan

This is what drives a young writer out of his head, this feeling that nothing is being said.

William Saroyan

Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.

William Saroyan

I believe there are ways whose ends are life instead of death.

William Saroyan

But try to remember that a good man can never die. You will see your brother many times again-in the streets, at home, in all the places of the town. The person of a man may go, but the best part of him stays. It stays forever.

William Saroyan

Author Bio

  • NameWilliam Saroyan
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • BornAugust 31, 1908
  • DiedMay 18, 1981
  • CountryUnited States Of America; Armenia
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Playwright; Novelist; Writer
  • WorksThe Time Of Your Life; The Human Comedy
  • AwardsPulitzer Prize For Drama; Academy Awards Oscar