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.

William Saroyan

Categorized in : Men Cities Empty Life

I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.

William Saroyan

prayer home war

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. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed...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.

William Saroyan

delight sorrow add

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."

William Saroyan

sorrow add life

Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

William Saroyan

anger motivational death

Unless a man has pity he is not truly a man. If a man has not wept at the worlds pain he is only half a man, and there will always be pain in the world, knowing this does not mean that a man shall dispair. A good man will seek to take pain out of things. A foolish man will not even notice it, except in himself, and the poor unfortunate evil man will drive pain deeper into things and spread it about wherever he goes.

William Saroyan

pain men mean

It is simply in the nature of Armenian to study, to learn, to question, to speculate, to discover, to invent, to revise, to restore, to preserve, to make, and to give.

William Saroyan

armenians study giving

In the end, today is forever, yesterday is still today, and tomorrow is already today.

William Saroyan

yesterday forever today

Be grateful for yourself...be thankful.

William Saroyan

being-thankful gratitude grateful

You live and die according to what goes on in yourself, which no one else can even begin to know, not even father, mother, wife, son, or daughter.

William Saroyan

daughter mother father

The whole world and every human being in it is everybody's business.

William Saroyan

human-beings humans world

I have always been a Laugher, disturbing people who are not laughers, upsetting whole audiences at theatres... I laugh, that's all. I love to laugh. Laugher to me is being alive. I have had rotten times, and I have laughed through them. Even in the midst of the very worst times I have laughed.

William Saroyan

upset laughing people

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 I am an Armenian writer and deeply love the honor of being a part of the family of Armenian wrtiters.

William Saroyan

writing mean america

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

William Saroyan

famous-last-words inspiration would-be

Remember that every man is a variation of yourself

William Saroyan

variation remember men

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

William Saroyan

gratitude cheer happiness

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

William Saroyan

veterinarian knows writing

The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.

William Saroyan

roles world art

My birthplace was California, but I couldn't forget Armenia, so what is one's country? Is it land of the earth, in a specific place? Rivers there? Lakes? The sky there? The way the moon comes up there? And the sun? Is one's country the trees, the vineyards, the grass, the birds, the rocks, the hills and summer and winter? Is it the animal rhythm of the living there? The huts and houses, the streets of cities, the tables and chairs, and the drinking of tea and talking? Is it the peach ripening in summer heat on the bough? Is it the dead in the earth there?

William Saroyan

drinking summer country

Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world.

William Saroyan

sorrow shining heart

The bicycle is the noblest invention of mankind.

William Saroyan

bikers cycling invention