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Description
Stein's most famous work; one of the richest and most irreverent biographies ever written.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis
Important People
- Gertrude Stein: Author - the book is essentially her autobiography (memoirs) written from the point of view of her lover, Alice B. Toklas.
- Alice B. Toklas: The book is written from her point of view, but not really her autobiography although containing autobiographical sections.
- Pablo Picasso: Best friend to Gertrude Stein, Picasso features heavily all throughout the book as an influence and friend.
Memorable Quotes
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“I remember not long ago hearing Picasso and Gertrude Stein talking about various things that had happened at that time, one of them said but all that could not have happened in that one year, oh said the other, my dear you forget we were young then and we did a great deal in a year.”
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“The pictures were so strange that one quite instinctively looked at anything rather than at them just at first.”
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“Sure, she said, as Pablo once remarked, when you make a thing, it is so complicted in making it that it is bound to be ugly, but those that do it after you they don't have to worry about making it and they can make it pretty, and so everybody can like it when the others make it.”
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“When I first knew Gertrude Stein in Paris I was surprised never to see a french book on her table, although there were always plenty of english ones, there were even no french newspapers. But do you never read french, I as well as many other people asked her. No, she replied, you see I feel with my eyes and it does not make any difference to me what language I hear, I don't hear a language, I hear tones of voice and rhythms, but with my eyes I see words and sentences and there is for me only one language and that is english. One of the things I have liked all these years is to be surrounded by people who know no english. It has left me more intensely alone with my eyes and my english. I do not know if it would have been possible to have english be so all in all to me otherwise. And they none of them could read a word I wrote, most of them did not even know that I did write. No, I like living with so very many people and being all alone with english and myself.”
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“Hemingway, remarks are not literature.”
Gertrude Stein -
“Gertrude Stein never corrects any detail of anybody's writing, she sticks strictly to general principles, the way of seeing what the writer chooses to see, and the relation between that vision and how it gets down. When the vision is not complete the words are flat, it is very simple, there can be no mistake about it, so she insists.”
- Show all quotations from this book (warning: contains spoilers)
First Sentence
I was born in San Francisco, California.
Table of Contents
1. Before I Came To Paris
2. My Arrival In Paris
3. Gertrude Stein In Paris - 1903-1907
4. Gertrude Stein Before She Came To Paris
5. 1907-1914
6. The War
7. After The War - 1907-1914
Authors & Contributors
- Gertrude Stein (Author)
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