Gertrude Stein Quotes

255 Sourced Quotes

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.

Gertrude Stein
I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.

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

Gertrude Stein
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.

Gertrude Stein
One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.

Gertrude Stein
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.

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

Gertrude Stein
Would I if I could by pushing a button would I kill five thousand Chinamen if I could save my brother from anything. Well I was very fond of my brother and I could completely imagine his suffering and I replied that five thousand Chinamen were something I could not imagine and so it was not interesting.
One has to remember that about imagination, that is when the world gets dull when everybody does not know what they can or what they cannot really imagine.

Gertrude Stein
She took us to see her granddaughter who was teaching in the Dominican convent in San Raphael, we went across the bay on a ferry, that had not changed but Goat Island might just as well not have been there, anyway what was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.

Gertrude Stein
Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding any one.

Gertrude Stein
The idea of enemies is awful it makes one stop remembering eternity and the fear of death. That is what enemies are. Possessions are the same as enemies only less so, they too make one forget eternity and the fear of death.

Gertrude Stein
Repeating is the whole of living and by repeating comes understanding, and understanding is to some the most important part of living.

Gertrude Stein
A virgin a whole virgin is judged made and so between curves and outlines and real seasons and more out glasses and a perfectly unprecedented arrangement between old ladies and mild colds there is no satin wood shining.

Gertrude Stein
To be regularly gay was to do every day the gay thing that they did every day. To be regularly gay was to end every day at the same time after they had been regularly gay. They were regularly gay. They were gay every day. They ended every day in the same way, at the same time, and they had been every day regularly gay.

Gertrude Stein
The head-lines which do not head anything they simply replace something but they do not make anything.

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

Gertrude Stein
It is all the question of identity.... As long as the outside does not put a value on you it remains outside but when it does put a value on you then it gets inside or rather if the outside puts a value on you then all your inside gets to be outside.

Gertrude Stein
If nobody had to die how would there be room enough for any of us who now live to have lived.

Gertrude Stein
The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just... I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not understanding and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don't understand.

Gertrude Stein
I could never be one of two I could never be two in one as married couples do and can, I am but one all one, one and all one, and so I have never been married to any one.

Gertrude Stein
A comma by helping you along holding your coat for you and putting on your shoes keeps you from living your life as actively as you should lead it and to me for many years... the use of them was positively degrading.

Gertrude Stein
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.

Gertrude Stein
Animals in different countries have different expressions just as the people in different countries differ in expression.

Gertrude Stein
More and more I am certain that the only difference between man and animals is that men can count and animals cannot and if they count they mostly do count money.

Gertrude Stein
When moneys in a purse in my own pocket
It means wealth.

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

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

Gertrude Stein
Suppose no one asked a question, what would be the answer.

Gertrude Stein
If you do not remember while you are writing, it may seem confused to others but actually it is clear and eventually that clarity will be clear, that is what a master-piece is, but if you remember while you are writing it will seem clear at the time to any one but the clarity will go out of it that is what a master-piece is not.

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

Gertrude Stein