Gertrude Stein Quotes - Page 2

It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.

Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing.

I wish that I was where I am.

I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do.

When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.

Ladies there is no neutral position for us to assume.

How I wish I were able to say what I think.

There are a lot of other things besides nouns.

If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.

Just before she died she asked, What is the answer? No answer came. She laughed and said, In that case, what is the question? Then she died.

The reason why all of us naturally began to live in France is because France has scientific methods, machines and electricity, but does not really believe that these things have anything to do with the real business of living.

It is better to lose and win, than win and be defeated.

You have to learn to do everything, even to die.

A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.

You have to know what you want. And if it seems to take you off the track, don't hold back, because perhaps that is instinctively where you want to be. And if you hold back and try to be always where you have been before, you will go dry.

An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.

Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.

Forget grammar and think about potatoes

The first hope of a painter who feels hopeful about painting is the hope that the painting will move, that it will live outside its frame.

In America ... who is to stop congress from spending too much money. They will not stop themselves, that is certain. Everybody has to think about that now. Who is to stop them.

art is the pulse of a nation.

Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.

Money is always there but the pockets change.

I am I because my little dog knows me.

I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.