I want time in which to walk quietly over the earth, among uncrazed men. I want time in which to build a house, inhabit it, create a past with meaning. I want time in which to seek and find love. I want time. I want to be unhurried, uncaught. I want time in which to sleep and waken, in which to dream the truth of my being on earth. Time.

— William Saroyan

William Saroyan Quotes

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

— William Saroyan

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.

— William Saroyan

What do you mean, what’s the matter with him? Nothing’s the matter with him, everything’s the matter with him, the same as it is with everybody else. He’s just fine. He gets overwhelmed now and then, and he doesn’t know how to say what he feels or means, so he cries and runs off a little, trying to find out where to go, for God’s sake. Where can you go?

— William Saroyan

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

I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity? Are we sure it is desirable for a man’s spirit not to be at war with itself, or that it is better to be serene and ready to go to dinner than to be excited and unwilling to stop for a cup of coffee, even?

— William Saroyan

I want time in which to walk quietly over the earth, among uncrazed men. I want time in which to build a house, inhabit it, create a past with meaning. I want time in which to seek and find love. I want time. I want to be unhurried, uncaught. I want time in which to sleep and waken, in which to dream the truth of my being on earth. Time.

— William Saroyan

One picture is worth a thousand words. Yes, but only if you look at the picture and say or think the thousand words.

— William Saroyan

I am an estranged man, said the liar: estranged from myself, from my family, my fellow man, my country, my world, my time, and my culture. I am not estranged from God, although I am a disbeliever in everything about God excepting God indefinable, inside all and careless of all.

— 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 everybody’s best friend and only true enemy – the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops.

— William Saroyan

Think before you speak, think twice before you shout, think three times before you go mad.

— William Saroyan

Illness must be considered to be as natural as health.

— William Saroyan

My uncle Khosrove became very irritated and shouted, It’s no harm. What is the loss of a horse? Haven’t we all lost the homeland? What is this crying over a horse?

— 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 only for having disappeared. Armenians are too vital to be permitted to throw themselves away in neutrality, comfort, well-being, satisfaction, and so on and so forth.

— William Saroyan

I thought a fellow would never cry when he got to be grown up, but it seems as if that’s when a fellow starts, because that’s when a fellow starts finding out about things.

— William Saroyan

As for the matter of what we may expect from one another, that is indeed something we are eager to learn – all of us, all our lives, but I wonder, do we ever learn, do we ever really find out?

— William Saroyan

Everything is changed for you. But it is still the same, too. The loneliness you feel has come to you because you are no longer a child. But the world has always been full of that loneliness.

— William Saroyan

At the corner she looked suddenly far away and saw the street go straight out to the sky. She looked up to the sky and saw it go everywhere, and my, she thought, how large it is, what a large place it is. What a large world. So many different people, so many different places, close by and far away, people everywhere, places everywhere. What a fine place to be in.

— William Saroyan

All I can say is that there is indeed a crisis here. We cannot speak to one another in a meaningful way, every one of us is a leader, a general of the army, a king, a president, the greatest thinker of all time, and so on and so forth. This is the curse of the Armenian race.

— William Saroyan

When I think of the good things still to be written I am glad, for there is no end to them, and I know I myself shall write some of them.

— William Saroyan
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