Gertrude Stein
» America » “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.”
» America » “The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
» Arts and Artists » “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.”
» Communism and Socialism » “Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood.”
» Desire » “I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.”
» Future » “It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.”
» Identity » “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.”
» Last Words » “What is the answer?
