“The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I am the only comfort I have, excepting perhaps streets, clouds, the sun, the faces and voices of kids and the aged, and similar accidents of beauty, innocence, truth and loneliness.”

My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I a…" by William Saroyan?

William Saroyan190

American writer 1908–1981

Related quotes

“I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)

“Now I must, I suppose, explain why I have been writing this account. […] I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder. Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself, or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Fiction, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", Orbit 10 (1972)

“Sometimes when I am alone in my beautiful apartments, brooding over these things and nursing my loneliness, I say to myself: "There are cases when success is a tragedy." There are moments when I regret my whole career, when my very success seems to be a mistake. I think that I was born for a life of intellectual interest. I was certainly brought up for one. The day when that accident turned my mind from college to business seems to be the most unfortunate day in my life. I think that I should be much happier as a scientist or writer, perhaps. I should then be in my natural element, and if I were doomed to loneliness I should have comforts to which I am now a stranger. That's the way I feel every time I pass the abandoned old building of the City College. The business world contains plenty of successful men who have no brains. Why, then, should I ascribe my triumph to special ability?”

Abraham Cahan book The Rise of David Levinsky

The Rise of David Levinsky (1917)

“At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful … The only sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read after the war is over — a century after it is over.”

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

A letter home, included in Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters (1918) edited by Robert Holliday

“I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

“What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

“I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"The Wind in the Hemlock"
Flame and Shadow (1920)

“I don’t think my lifestyle will change. This is how I am. This is where I am comfortable.”

S. S. Rajamouli (1973) Indian film director

Exclusive: 'I don’t think my lifestyle will change,' Rajamouli on life post Baahubali http://www.deccanchronicle.com/entertainment/tollywood/020517/ss-rajamouli-is-still-very-modest.html (2 May 2017), Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 8 September 2017.

“I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Source: Magical Thinking: True Stories

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

William Saroyan190

Related quotes

Related topics