Madness in the Family Quotes

“She cried a little, but only inside, because long ago she had decided she didn't like crying because if you ever started to cry it seemed as if there was so much to cry about you almost couldn't stop, and she didn't like that at all.”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“What do you mean, what's the matter with him? Nothing's the matter with him, everything's the matter with him, the same as it is with everybody else. He's just fine. He gets overwhelmed now and then, and he doesn't know how to say what he feels or means, so he cries and runs off a little, trying to find out where to go, for God's sake. Where can you go?”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“Cowards are nice, they're interesting, they're gentle, they wouldn't think of shooting down people in a parade from a tower. They want to live, so they can see their kids. They're very brave.”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“What can I tell you, except the stupid little I know?”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“Sometimes the most intelligent thing is not to do anything, certainly nothing loaded with the imbecility of emotionality.”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“He's finding out, he's doing all right, he'll go to school but nobody's going to teach him anything.”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“I have an idea that most of all he is running away from love, because it's too big and too demanding. He's running away from us--from you, from me, from his sister, from himself, too. Who wants to be himself, who wants to be so little, and so captured and limited?”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories

“Zombies have got to do a lot of hanging around together--weaklings, liars, cheaters. Everybody respects them these days, everybody thinks that if they don't respect them it means they're against civil liberties or something, but I can only sympathize with them a little, but only a little; I can't respect them, they bore me--their everlasting bawling about their tricky little sadnesses and deprivations of childhood bore me. You've introduced me to some of the people you know. I don't dislike any of them, but I really can't pretend I believe in any of them, or that they don't bore me. And in being critical of them of course I'm being critical of you, too, at least for having them as friends. There are other people around, too, you know, not just the ones who start by giving up, and then just hang around to see what giving up leads to. It leads to being a zombie of one sort or another.”
― William Saroyan, Madness in the Family: Stories