William Faulkner Quotes - Page 8

Quotes about:

• Read, read read. Read everything.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Famous Writers, Writers Reading

  10 Copy quote

• People need trouble - a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it.

  William Faulkner

  Frustration, People, Needs

  15 Copy quote

• I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind -- and that of the minds who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town.

  William Faulkner

  Moving, Reality, Bereavement

  William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck (1971). “William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill [and] John Steinbeck”

  38 Copy quote

• In every writer there is a certain amount of the scavenger.

  William Faulkner

  Certain, Amount

  13 Copy quote

• Nothing can injure a man's writing if he's a first-rate writer. If a man is not a first-rate writer, there's not anything can help it much. The problem does not apply if he is not first rate because he has already sold his soul for a swimming pool.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Swimming, Men

  5 Copy quote

• Well, between Scotch and nothin', I suppose I'd take Scotch. It's the nearest thing to good moonshine I can find.

  William Faulkner

  Scotch, Moonshine, Wells

  National Observer, February 3, 1964.

  59 Copy quote

• She forced herself once more to think of nothing, to keep her consciousness immersed, as a little dog that one keeps under water until he has stopped struggling

  William Faulkner

  Dog, Struggle, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true.

  William Faulkner

  Reason, Knows

  William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck (1971). “William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill [and] John Steinbeck”

  7 Copy quote

• Now she hates me. I have taught her that, at least.

  William Faulkner

  Hate, Taught, Hate Me

  William Faulkner (1985). “Light in August”, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

  William Faulkner

  Men, Voice, Pillars

  Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, 10 Dec. 1950

  30 Copy quote

• The only environment the artist needs is whatever peace, whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a cost.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Artist, Solitude

  21 Copy quote

• That's sad too, people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today

  William Faulkner

  People, Today, Tomorrow

  William Faulkner (2011). “FAULKNER READER”, p.82, Modern Library

  5 Copy quote

• We will have to choose not between color nor race nor religion nor between East and West either, but simply between being slaves and being free. And we will have to choose completely and for good; the time is already past now when we can choose a little of each, a little of both. We can choose a state of slavedom, and if we are powerful enough to be among the top two or three or ten, we can have a certain amount of license - until someone more powerful rises and has us machine-gunned against a cellar wall.

  William Faulkner

  Wisdom, Wall, Powerful

  William Faulkner (2011). “Essays, Speeches & Public Letters”, p.150, Modern Library

  4 Copy quote

• Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything.

  William Faulkner

  Broken Heart, Giving Up, Kindness

  Light in August ch. 13 (1932)

  13 Copy quote

• Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling.

  William Faulkner

  Art, Horse, Hands

  1956 Interview in Paris Review, Spring.

  9 Copy quote

• I don't suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You don't have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn't hear.

  William Faulkner

  Time, Long, Mind

  William Faulkner (2013). “The Sound And The Fury”, p.63, Random House

  8 Copy quote

• The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

  William Faulkner

  Believe, Artist, Vanity

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

  6 Copy quote

• This is a free country. Folks have a right to send me letters, and I have a right not to read them.

  William Faulkner

  Country, Letters, Reading Books

  18 Copy quote

• The best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it's the perfect milieu for an artist to work in.

  William Faulkner

  Jobs, Artist, Best Job

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

  86 Copy quote

• There is no such thing as was - only is. If was existed, there would be no grief or sorrow.

  William Faulkner

  Grief, Sorrow, Would Be

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

  17 Copy quote

• A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.

  William Faulkner

  God, Dream, Men

  William Faulkner, Paul Gardner, Eric Mottram (1976). “A Faulkner perspective: a companion-guide to the limited first edition of the Selected letters of William Faulkner”

  8 Copy quote

• I don't know anything about inspiration because I don't know what inspiration is; I've heard about it, but I never saw it.

  William Faulkner

  Inspiration, Saws, Heard

  4 Copy quote

• I never promise a woman anything nor let her know what I'm going to give her. That's the only way to manage them. Always keep them guessing. If you cant think of any other way to surprise them, give them a bust in the jaw.

  William Faulkner

  Thinking, Giving, Promise

  William Faulkner (2016). “The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)”, p.101, W. W. Norton & Company

  5 Copy quote

• To the man grown the long crowded mile of his boyhood becomes less than the throw of a stone.

  William Faulkner

  Men, Long, Childhood

  William Faulkner (1951). “Absalom, Absalom!”

  4 Copy quote

• Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties carried tediously to an unvarying nil: stalemate of dust and desire.

  William Faulkner

  Men, Dust, Desire

  William Faulkner (2011). “FAULKNER READER”, p.126, Modern Library

  10 Copy quote

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