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Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength.

— William Saroyan Seventy Thousand Assyrians (1934)

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More quotes by William Saroyan

I don't like to see kids throw away their truth just because it isn't worth a dime in the open market.

The Flashing Dragonfly (1973)

Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?

He wanted to be a passenger on anything that was going anywhere, but most of all on a ship.

The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is.

The William Saroyan Reader (1958)

I believe there are ways whose ends are life instead of death.

Inhale and Exhale (1936)

All William Saroyan quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Saroyan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.