"I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia."

William Saroyan Literature See all quotes by William Saroyan →

React to this quote

More by William Saroyan

“Nobody seemed to be interested in anything except making money.”

“I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.”

“Boredom was the plague of my childhood. While I was at the orphanage, the boredom came from being in a place I did not wish to be. I was bored. I was bored the entire four years I was there.”

“Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good as someone else.”

“The bicycle is a city thing, virtually useless anywhere excepting on a pavement or hard surface of some kind. Without the road it would never have been invented. It is a little mad, both in design and purpose. Two wheels held together in a frame, with a simple mechanical system enabling a forward movement for one person.”

“To remember something or to invent something, it comes to the same thing.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Marx imagined the end of scarcity would bring the end of history. He could not bring himself to see that a world without scarcity had already been achieved - in the prehistoric societies that he and E…"

— John Gray (philosopher)

Philosophy1948

#freedom

"Swords flashed like lightning amid the blackness of clouds, and fountains of blood flowed like the fall of setting stars. The friends of God defeated their obstinate opponents, and quickly put them to…"

— Mahmud of Ghazni

Military971–1030

#family

"More than a billion women around the world want to emulate western women’s lifestyles and are rapidly acquiring the material ability to do so. It is therefore vital that in our leadership we display s…"

— Louise Burfitt-Dons

Social Activism1953

#leadership

"The strength of Soviet patriotism lies in the fact that it is based not on racial or nationalistic prejudices, but on the peoples’ profound loyalty and devotion to their Soviet Motherland, on the frat…"

— Joseph Stalin

Politics

#friendship