William Saroyan Quotes

There is quite a large clan of Scotties among American beggars. He is a good beggar for the simple reason that he is a good talker. Almost every Scotch beggar I met in the States of America was inclined to be talkative, and yet they all managed to conceal their private affairs.

It's a mistake to think that there's a difference between someone on the street and someone not on the street.

I was out there for 12 days. There are more beggars in Soho than there are in Kabul.

Precious was one of a large number of people on the street, many of whom appeared to be women; some, like Precious, actually were.

Modesty is of no use to a beggar.

Pride in the case of a rich man is bad, but pride in the case of a poor man is worse.

No, I'm not wealthy.

There's something very visceral about watching people beg for money. It's powerful.

False shame accompanies a man that is poor, shame that either harms a man greatly or profits him; shame is with poverty, but confidence with wealth.

It's amazing that no matter how much money you have, you can make some bad decisions, and in five months you're on the street, begging.

There are men and women still on the streets, and that's all they are saying Can you spare a quarter? I come from a crowd of people who were current on the outlook on life, who were social and knew where they were and had some input into how things seemed to be.

I used to sit in front of McDonald's and ask people for dollars to get me a cheeseburger. It was bad.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, he had not the method of making a fortune.

Sometimes I put on a ski mask and dress in old clothes, go out on the streets and beg for quarters.

Jail is much easier on people who have nothing.

Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.

The habit of begging, that plague of tourist resorts, is an incessant nuisance on the Alhambra hill.

Sade's stuff is real deceptive. She's got stuff about prostitutes, poverty and people on the streets.

No city in Italy contains so many miserable beggars, and no town in the world so many blind.

Poverty is no disgrace, but it's no honor either.

There are no "points of light" for those who sleep on grates and park benches.

There are at this day in Scotland two hundred thousand people begging from door to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but a very grievous burden to so poor a country … It were better for the nation if they were sold to the galleys or West Indies, than that they should continue any longer to be a burden and curse upon us.

If our beggars of England should, with so much ease as they, furnish themselves with food at all seasons, there would not be so many starved in the streets, neither would so many gaoles [jails] be stuffed, or gallouses furnished with poore wretches, as I have seen them.

Men who were heads of families wandering the streets, eating from garbage cans

I don't suppose there is a more daring or more impudent rascal on earth than a good American beggar. It is always his boast that he has begged an ex-president, or the present one, and he claims to have received benefits from a number of well-known millionaires, actors, and prize-fighters.