William Saroyan (1908 – 1981)
Armenian American author, famous for his novel The Human Comedy (1943), and other works dealing with the comedies and tragedies of everyday existence.
Their singing wasn't particularly good, but the feeling with which they sang was not bad at all.
I have been to the place, Armenia. There is no nation there, but that is all the better. But I have been to that place, and I know this: that there is no nation in the world, no England and France and Italy, and no nation whatsoever.
The real story can never be told. It is untellable. The real (as real) is inaccessible, being gone in time. There is no point in glancing at the past, in summoning it up, in re-examining it, except on behalf of art — that is, the meaningful-real.
What I intended to do was to burn a half dozen of my books and keep warm, so that I could write my story, but when I looked around for titles to burn, I couldn't find any.
We know more than we need to know.
I say the time is ripe for a William Saroyan revival... Bill Saroyan, that rollicking elf of an author who knew well of irony and compassion and laughter, wrote first-class original works for television, and the adaptations of his plays invariably hit the mark.
I am thinking now in particular of the Playhouse 90 production of "The Time of Your Life." In it Jackie Gleason delivered a tremendous portrayal as Joe the philosopher who had this wistful greeting for everyone who entered the bar: "What's the dream?" ... In one of his last essays you may find a perceptive line that tells of the Saroyan working philosophy: "The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it." ... He looked, William Saroyan, exactly the way you would expect him to look. He had a huge mustache and a booming voice and a commanding presence. He was exuberant. He was mischievous. He was fun. ... How he could make the English language soar! His words danced. This was writing that was never inhabited by wallflowers. This was Bill Saroyan.
It seemed to me that I had no right to burn a book I hadn't even read.
A man cannot write a poem or a story that will transform the whole nature of man, his reality and his truth, making them greater and nobler.
I have managed to conceal my madness fairly effectively, and as far as I know it hasn't hurt anybody badly, for which I am grateful.
I had three secrets and sold them all.
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.