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.

About William Saroyan

William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an American novelist, playwright, and short story writer of Armenian descent. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film The Human Comedy. When the...

More quotations from William Saroyan

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

—William Saroyan

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Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

—William Saroyan

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Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in spirit.

—William Saroyan

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More quotations tagged with “sleep”

You wake up one day and say, "You know what, I don't think I ever need to sleep or have sex again." Congratulations, you're ready to have children.

—Ray Romano

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Dream research is a wonderful field. All you do is sleep for a living.

—Stephen LaBerge

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All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.

—Elias Canetti

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Now I see the secret of making the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

—Walt Whitman

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To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.

—Joan Klempner

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History

23 Nov 2014 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

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.