Gertrude Stein

"Think of the country you come from and go there."

"Argument is to me the air I breathe."

"Human nature if it is to survive must become more varied."

"I like a thing simple but it must be simple through subtlety."

"Picasso once said about me that I was the only woman in the history of the world who could understand him."

"War is a nice quick way to test the mettle of your country."

"I have always been a big admirer of hard work."

"The business of art is to reveal the relations which nature at any moment wears."

"An artist must train himself rigorously and persistently."

"Three things are necessary for the creation of all greatness and goodness, namely love."

"I could not say it if I did not think it therefore I said it."

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life."

"No one says a word and they do not dance either."

"America is the first place in which this tradition has moved on."

"Very likely it is absurd, things often are."

"A very great master might be very kind to you."

"I cannot repeat anything that I have written."

"If you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are not being anything else."

"Everybody has to eat or do something."

"Things are important if they happen in your neighborhood."

"Writing should be clear and direct."

"The only time when it is really interesting to read a thing is when it is not yet written."

"Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist."

"I have no use for poetry that does not teach."

"Eating and reading are pleasures that do not diminish."

"Nothing as dreariness as remembering things."

"It is usually the way with things that you find it out too late."

"The moment it has all gone nothing matters."

"A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished."

"There is no such thing as a real American."