Quotes By Gertrude Stein

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.

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

What is music. A passion for colonies not a love of country.

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

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

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

I don't envisage collectivism. There is no such animal, it is always individualism, sometimes the rest vote and sometimes they do not, and if they do they do and if they do not they do not.

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

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.

War is never fatal but always lost. Always lost.

Picasso once remarked I do not care who it is that has or does influence me as long as it is not myself.

To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write.

What is marriage, is marriage protection or religion, is marriage renunciation or abundance, is marriage a stepping-stone or an end. What is marriage.

Action and reaction are equal and opposite.

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

Just before she died she asked, What is the answer? No answer came. She laughed and said, In that case, what is the question? Then she died.

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

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

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

History takes time. History makes memory.

It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.

The difference between saints, forget-me-nots, and mountains, have to, have to, have to at a time.

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

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

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

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.

It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.

Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.

America is my country and Paris is my hometown.