Gertrude Stein the Author, biography, facts and quotes

"Americans are very friendly and very suspicious, that is what Americans are and that is what always upsets the foreigner, who deals with them, they are so friendly how can they be so suspicious they are so suspicious how can they be so friendly but they just are"

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

"History takes time. History makes memory"

"Very likely education does not make very much difference"

"Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family"

"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"

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

"The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing"

"The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it"

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

"One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come"

"One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure"

"Once more I can climb about and remind you that a woman in this epoch does the important literary thinking"

"Oh, I wish I were a miser; being a miser must be so occupying"

"Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting"

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

"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"

"Men cannot count, they do not know that two and two make four if women do not tell them so"

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

"Literature - creative literature - unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable"

"It is funny the two things most men are proudest of is the thing that any man can do and doing does in the same way, that is being drunk and being the father of their son"

"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"

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

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

"It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business"

"It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken"

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

"In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is"

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

"In a war everybody always knows all about Switzerland, in peace times it is just Switzerland but in war time it is the only country that everybody has confidence in, everybody"

"I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich"

"I could undertake to be an efficient pupil if it were possible to find an efficient teacher"

"Human beings are interested in two things. They are interested in the reality and interested in telling about it"

"Hemingway's remarks are not literature"

"Generally speaking, everyone is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything"

"Everyone gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense"

"Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages"

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

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense"

"Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know"

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

"Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything"

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

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

"But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, 'How can I combine career and family?'"

"Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded"

"Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it"

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

"America is my country and Paris is my hometown"

"Action and reaction are equal and opposite"

Occup.	Author
From	USA
Spouse	Alice B. Toklas
Born	February 3, 1874 Allegheny, Pennsylvania, USA
Died	July 29, 1946 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Cause	Stomach cancer
Aged	72 years

Gertrude Stein Biography

81 Famous quotes by Gertrude Stein