Gertrude Stein

rt has no function. It is not necessary. It has nothing to do with what anyone wants you to do or wants it to be, nothing but you and itself. The work generates itself and ideas and progress and learning come out of doing the work in a particular way. Creative art is a learning process for the artist and not a description of what is already known. An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work. The work needs concentration and one is often exhausted by it. It takes so much effort just to begin and although going on is mostly a pleasure it is also a great effort. The only thing for a creative artist to do is to do his chosen work. But really there is no choice. Nobody chooses. The only thing left for a creative artist to do is to do his chosen work in spite of everything and regardless of anything because when living draws to its end there are no excuses he can make to himself or to anyone else for not having done it. Either he did do it or he did not do it and very often he did not. Alas very often he did not.

Kiedy ma się już to czego się pragnęło to okazuje się że nie jest to wcale to czego się pragnęło.

Remarks are not literature.

It takes a lot of time being a genius -- you have to sit around so much doing nothing.

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

In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is.

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

Chwilę zanim umarła, Gertrude Stein zapytała: „Jaka jest odpowiedź?” Żadna odpowiedź nie nadeszła. Zaśmiała się i powiedziała: „W takim razie – jakie jest pytanie?” I wtedy umarła.

Just before she died, Gertrude Stein asked: „What is the answer?” No answer came. She laughed and said: „In that case what is the question?” Then she died.