Frasi di William Saroyan

„Posso amare un onesto idiota, ma non posso amare un genio disonesto.“

—  William Saroyan

Me stesso sulla terra; 1998, p. 41
Che ve ne sembra dell'America?

„Il massimo possibile della felicità è sapere che non è indispensabile essere felici.“

—  William Saroyan

Il mio cuore negli altipiani

„Leggere fa l'uomo completo, scrivere lo fa preciso […].“

—  William Saroyan

Settantamila assiri; 1998, p. 21
Che ve ne sembra dell'America?

„[…] un uomo non comincia a vivere se non comincia a morire.“

—  William Saroyan

Il mondo e il teatro; 1998, p. 107
Che ve ne sembra dell'America?

„Ognuno deve morire, è vero, ma io ho sempre pensato che sarebbe stata fatta un'eccezione nel mio caso. E ora, che succede?“

—  William Saroyan

„Io non so per quale ragione quel meraviglioso desiderio e altri del genere si manifestano pur sempre in una vita nuova, mentre l'esperienza ha dimostrato da un pezzo la futilità loro e il loro pericolo, ma è certo che continuano a manifestarsi per una ragione o un'altra, e ho quasi idea che siano universali, ed eterni, inevitabili di ogni vita che si forma, poi lentamente o rapidamente messi via, secondo i casi, in quanto non ad altro conducono che a dolore, dolore, o alla morte, e mai alla grandezza che pur svegliano dentro e che chiedono, vogliono, forse perché, nella natura delle cose, noi siamo, dopotutto, piccoli e deboli, e troppo facilmente ci adattiamo alla terra, accettiamo le limitazioni della mortalità.“

—  William Saroyan

Al calar del sole; 1998, pp. 162-163
Che ve ne sembra dell'America?

„L'arte non può più permettersi di essere sprezzante nei confronti della politica, e sembra ormai arrivato il tempo che la politica impari qualcosa dall'arte.“

—  William Saroyan

„Se un uomo grande e grosso vi dice qualche impertinenza e voi sapete di non poterlo stendere a terra con un solo colpo, bene, rispondetegli civilmente e in nove casi su dieci quello se ne andrà per i fatti suoi e lascerà voi ai vostri.
Ricordatevelo sempre.
Ma non sempre, si capisce, il trucco funziona. Ogni regola ha le sue eccezioni.
Pat Hogan, il telegrafista, fu un'eccezione.“

—  William Saroyan

Avviso a chi vuol lavorare nelle pompe funebri; 1998, p. 206
Che ve ne sembra dell'America?

„One day, back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke me up by tapping on the window of my room.“

—  William Saroyan, libro My Name Is Aram

"The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse".
My Name Is Aram (1940)
Contesto: One day, back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke me up by tapping on the window of my room.
"Aram," he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out the window.
I couldn't believe what I saw.
It wasn't morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know I wasn't dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.

„Then swiftly, neatly, with the grace of the young man on the trapeze, he was gone from his body.
For an eternal moment he was still all things at once: the bird, the fish, the rodent, the reptile, and man.“

—  William Saroyan

"The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze"
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934)
Contesto: Then swiftly, neatly, with the grace of the young man on the trapeze, he was gone from his body.
For an eternal moment he was still all things at once: the bird, the fish, the rodent, the reptile, and man. An ocean of print undulated endlessly and darkly before him. The city burned. The herded crowd rioted. The earth circled away, and knowing that he did so, he turned his lost face to the empty sky and became dreamless, unalive, perfect.

„In the end, today is forever, yesterday is still today, and tomorrow is already today.“

—  William Saroyan

My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)

„Art can no longer afford to be contemptuous of politics, and it appears to be time politics took a little instruction from art.“

—  William Saroyan

Something About a Soldier (1940)

„When you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.“

—  William Saroyan

Preface
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934)
Contesto: The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

„The loneliness does not come from the War. The War did not make it. It was the loneliness that made the War.“

—  William Saroyan, libro The Human Comedy

The Human Comedy (1943)
Contesto: 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 whole world has always been full of that loneliness. The loneliness does not come from the War. The War did not make it. It was the loneliness that made the War.

„Somewhere among every man's ancestors is a prince or a lord, a priest or a saint, and don't forget it. Wake up!“

—  William Saroyan

Jim Dandy : Fat Man in a Famine (1947)
Contesto: Somewhere among every man's ancestors is a prince or a lord, a priest or a saint, and don't forget it. Wake up! Inherit the wealth of your ancestors!.. Stop living like a mouse, live like the rich people do.

„What art needs is greater men, and what politics needs is better men.“

—  William Saroyan

Something About a Soldier (1940)
Contesto: Wars, for us, are either inevitable, or created. Whatever they are, they should not wholly vitiate art. What art needs is greater men, and what politics needs is better men.

„Jesus never said anything about absurdity, and he never indicated for one flash of time that he was aware of the preposterousness of his theory about himself.“

—  William Saroyan

Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang in Forever (1976)
Contesto: Jesus never said anything about absurdity, and he never indicated for one flash of time that he was aware of the preposterousness of his theory about himself. And he didn't even try to make the theory understandable in terms of the reality and experience of the rest of us. For if everybody else is also not what Jesus said he was, what good is what he said?

„I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself — of what I really was and would surely become — was George Bernard Shaw.“

—  William Saroyan

Hello Out There (1941)
Contesto: I have read books about the behavior of mobs — The Mob by Le Bon, if I remember rightly, was one — about the crime in children, and the genius in them, about the greatest bodies of things, and about the littlest of them. I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself — of what I really was and would surely become — was George Bernard Shaw.

„There is no such thing as a soldier. I see death as a private event, the destruction of the universe in the brain and in the senses of one man, and I cannot see any man's death as a contributing factor in the success or failure of a military campaign.“

—  William Saroyan

The Resurrection of a Life (1935)
Contesto: I cannot see the war as historians see it. Those clever fellows study all the facts and they see the war as a large thing, one of the biggest events in the legend of the man, something general, involving multitudes. I see it as a large thing too, only I break it into small units of one man at a time, and see it as a large and monstrous thing for each man involved. I see the war as death in one form or another for men dressed as soldiers, and all the men who survived the war, including myself, I see as men who died with their brothers, dressed as soldiers. There is no such thing as a soldier. I see death as a private event, the destruction of the universe in the brain and in the senses of one man, and I cannot see any man's death as a contributing factor in the success or failure of a military campaign.