William Saroyan Quotes

If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.

I'm more interested in writing than in performing.

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

When I want to read a novel, I write one.

I write the books to amuse myself.

For me, storytelling is what I love to do and that's my life's work. Football is not my life's work. It's just part of my life's journey, but creativity is my actual life's work.

I've always liked writing. Even when I was in art school and thought I was going to be a gallery painter, I liked to pair my artwork with writing. And so that naturally led to drawing comics.

I have notebooks all over the place. I write little stories for my cabaret.

I always had stories inside my head and one day I just decided to start writing them down. I didn't actually decide.

I'm going to continue writing. I'll always be a storyteller. But I'm also taking time to enjoy my life.

I never started writing because I wanted to write myself stuff. It was really more that I had these stories to tell, and I wanted to work with people that I respected and liked.

I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve.

I would spend my time telling stories or writing them.

I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.

Daydreaming had started me on the way; but story writing once I was truly in its grip, took me and shook me awake.

I write weird stories. I don't know why I like weirdness so much ... But when I write, I write weird. That's very strange. When I'm getting more and more serious, I'm getting more and more weird.

Writing is as big a part of my career as acting is, financially and time wise. So, yeah, I love it. That's all I wanted to do since I was young was be a writer. So that and acting are the two most important aspects of my career.

The funny thing about writing is I think a lot of people assume that you're sitting in a garret with a quill pen for hour after hour.

I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody's work. I like to adapt books.

I want to be remembered as a storyteller more than someone who had something meaningful to say.

I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold, and anything else is just a waste of time.

As a writer, I've always been interested in others.

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.