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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.

Gertrude Stein
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I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.
Gertrude Stein
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.
Gertrude Stein
It is not what France gave you but what it did not take from you that was important.
Gertrude Stein
In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.
Gertrude Stein
If you can do it then why do it?
Gertrude Stein
Oh, I wish I were a miser; being a miser must be so occupying.
Gertrude Stein
The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.
Gertrude Stein
The nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not.
Gertrude Stein
It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken.
Gertrude Stein
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Gertrude Stein
The thing that differentiates man from animals is money.
Gertrude Stein
But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, 'How can I combine career and family?'
Gertrude Stein
Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages.
Gertrude Stein
It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.
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
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
There is too much fathering going on just now and there is no doubt about it fathers are depressing.
Gertrude Stein
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.
Gertrude Stein
America is my country and Paris is my hometown.
Gertrude Stein
Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.
Gertrude Stein
Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know.
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.
Gertrude Stein
An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.
Gertrude Stein
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.
Gertrude Stein
Just as everybody has the vote including women, I think children should, because as a child is conscious of itself then it has to me an existence and has a stake in what happens.
Gertrude Stein
Once more I can climb about and remind you that a woman in this epoch does the important literary thinking.
Gertrude Stein
It is the soothing thing about history that it does repeat itself.
Gertrude Stein
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.
Gertrude Stein
A house in the country is not the same as a country house.
Gertrude Stein
There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.
Gertrude Stein
Generally speaking, everyone is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything.
Gertrude Stein
I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.
Gertrude Stein
If you are looking down while you are walking it is better to walk up hill the ground is nearer.
Gertrude Stein
It is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.
Gertrude Stein
Picasso once remarked I do not care who it is that has or does influence me as long as it is not myself.
Gertrude Stein
Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone.
Gertrude Stein
What is music. A passion for colonies not a love of country.
Gertrude Stein
History takes time. History makes memory.
Gertrude Stein
Hemingway's remarks are not literature.
Gertrude Stein
It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.
Gertrude Stein
Human beings are interested in two things. They are interested in the reality and interested in telling about it.
Gertrude Stein
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.
Gertrude Stein
Is it worse to be scared than to be bored, that is the question.
Gertrude Stein
What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?
Gertrude Stein
Remarks are not literature.
Gertrude Stein
Sculpture is made with two instruments and some supports and pretty air.
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
It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.
Gertrude Stein