Quotes from William Saroyan

Americans still believe they are cut out to be successful-in everything: love, love-making, luck, luck-giving, money-making, sense-making, cancer-avoiding, clothes-wearing, car-driving, and so on.

If you give to a thief he cannot steal from you, and he is then no longer a thief.

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.

Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in the spirit.

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.

I care so much about everything that I care about nothing

I can't hate for long. It isn't worth it.

You must remember always to give, of everything you have. You must give foolishly even. You must be extravagant. You must give to all who come into your life. Then nothing and no one shall have power to cheat you of anything, for if you give to a thief, he cannot steal from you, and he himself is then no longer a thief. And the more you give, the more you will have to give.

The writer who is a real writer is a rebel who never stops.

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.

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

I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.