One day in the afternoon of the world, glum death will come and sit in you, and when you get up to walk, you will be as glum as death, but if you're lucky, this will only make the fun better and the love greater.
Interpretation
Life's challenges and the inevitability of death can enhance our experiences of joy and love.
William Saroyan's quote reflects on the inevitability of death and the sorrow that often accompanies it. However, he suggests that this awareness can actually deepen our appreciation for life, making our joyful experiences and loving connections more meaningful. The contrast between glumness and joy serves to remind us that the realities of life and death coexist, and understanding this can enrich our emotional experiences.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech at a memorial service to celebrate the lives of those who have passed.
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.
San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth.
I care so much about everything that I care about nothing.
I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity? Are we sure it is desirable for a man's spirit not to be at war with itself, or that it is better to be serene and ready to go to dinner than to be excited and unwilling to stop for a cup of coffee, even?
Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.
It is a pity, in my opinion, that no prize exists for the writer who best refrains from adding to the world's bad books.
I'll get back to the whores and the horses and the booze, while there's time.
It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with a balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
Upon the demon-ridden pilgrimage of human life, what next I wonder.
If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?
People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest.
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