 Over the years, the story has become known for the excerpt—"arguably [Saroyan's] most famous saying"—about the survival of the Armenian people after the genocide of 1915.William Saroyan was born in Fresno, California, to Armenian immigrant parents from Turkish (Western) Armenia.The Armenian community in Fresno—already significant by the 1910s—grew larger by the influx of genocide survivors and Saroyan grew up in an Armenian environment.