Gertrude Stein Quotes

A diary means yes indeed.

Any time is the time to make a poem.

I murmured to Picasso that I liked his portrait of Gertrude Stein. Yes, he said, everybody said that she does not look like it, but that does not make any difference, she will, he said.

I have declared that patience is never more than patient. I too have declared, that I who am not patient am patient.

Do not forget birthdays. This is in no way a propaganda for a larger population.

Generally speaking anybody is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything.

Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood.

Action and reaction are equal and opposite.

There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.

It is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.

If you knew it all it would not be creation but dictation.

In America, everybody is, but some are more than others.

A masterpiece... may be unwelcome but it is never dull.

you are brilliant and subtle if you come from Iowa and really strange and you live as you live and you are always very well taken care of if you come from Iowa.

there are the two sides to a Frenchman, logic and fashion and that is the reason why French people are exciting and peaceful. Logic and fashion.

In France one must adapt oneself to the fragrance of a urinal.

I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.

I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences.

I am I because my little dog knows me.

There is no such thing as repetition. Only insistance.

If you are looking down while you are walking it is better to walk up hill the ground is nearer.

Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.

A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing.

Let me listen to me and not to them.

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

The nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not.

Counting is the religion of this generation it is its hope and its salvation.

Men and girls, men and girls: Artificial swine and pearls.

There is too much fathering going on just now and there is no doubt about it fathers are depressing.

Money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money.

What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?

This is the place of places and and it is here.

The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.

The only thing that is different from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything.

Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.

You have to know what you want to get it.

Honesty is a selfish virtue. Yes I am honest enough.

It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.

A sentence is not emotional a paragraph is.

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

When you get there, there isn't any there there.

I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only way that I can do it.

It is not what France gave you but what it did not take from you that was important.

The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn't make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.

Name any name and then remember everybody you ever knew who bore that name. Are they all alike. I think so.

The nineteenth century was completely lacking in logic, it had cosmic terms and hopes, and aspirations, and discoveries, and ideals but it had no logic.

Forget grammar and think about potatoes

Is it worse to be scared than to be bored, that is the question.

Sculpture is made with two instruments and some supports and pretty air.

And identity is funny being yourself is funny as you are never yourself to yourself except as you remember yourself and then of course you do not believe yourself.