quote · Legacy record
Then what is good? The obsessive interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, that first made the experience of living something that must be translated into pigment or music or bodily movement or poetry or prose or anything that's dynamic and expressivee--that's what's good for you if you're at all serious in your aims. William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.
Then what is good? The obsessive interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, that first made the experience of living something that must be translated into pigment or music or bodily movement or poetry or prose or anything that's dynamic and expressivee--that's what's good for you if you're at all serious in your aims. William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.
Approximate author period: c. 1947 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Tennessee Williams
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1947 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1911 to 1983; Wikidata Q134262, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q134262 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 47644; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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