A biography for Gertrude Steinhasn’t been written yet.
“There is no such thing as being good to your wife.”
“I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do.”
“It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.”
“The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.”
“Men cannot count, they do not know that two and two make four if women do not tell them so.”
“it is nice that nobody writes as they talk and that the printed language is different from the spoken otherwise you could not lose yourself in books and of course you do you completely do.”
“Literature - creative literature - unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable.”
“A masterpiece... may be unwelcome but it is never dull.”
“One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come.”
“There is a difference between twenty-nine and thirty. When you are twenty-nine it can be the beginning of everything. When you are thirty it can be the end of everything.”
“There is no real reality to a really imagined life any more.”
“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.”
“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.”
“One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure.”
“History takes time. History makes memory.”
“It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.”
“I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought.”
“Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.”
“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”
“Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.”