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
army-and-navy captured fact life setting three
Three times in my life I have been captured: by the orphanage, by school, and by the Army. But I'm mistaken. The fact is I was captured only once, when I was born, only that capture is also setting free, which is what this is actually all about. The
life kids race
Kids are always the only future the human race has.
men cities empty-life
Standing at the edge of our city, a man could feel that we had made this place of streets and dwellings in the stillness of the desert, and that we had done a brave thing... Or a man could feel that we had made this city in the desert and that it was a fake thing and that our lives were empty lives, and that we were the contemporaries of the jack rabbits.
life lying dark
All things lie dark in possibility.
life men rehearsing
It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to be himself.
time-of-your-life
Live, for this is the time of your life.
good-times time-of-your-life ugliness
In the time of your life, live-so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches.
life sorrow delight
In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."
afraid boy seemed victim
I was a little afraid of him; not the boy himself, but of what he seemed to be: the victim of the world.
swift visual wisdom
My wisdom was visual and as swift as vision.
work
Without pressure, the work doesn't get done at all.
god kids noticed pride slowly society sticky worms
This transformation in kids - from flashing dragonflies, so to say, to sticky water-surface worms slowly slipping downstream - is noticed with pride by society and with mortification by God ...
cheers multitude neither nor rebel walks writer
He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a real writer is a rebel who never stops.
glad home
But the world was my home and I was glad to be in it.