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William Faulkner Quotes - Page 11

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I am trying to say it all in one sentence, between one cap and one period.

I am trying to say it all in one sentence, between one cap and one period.

William Faulkner
Trying, Caps, Periods
William Faulkner, Joseph Leo Blotner (1978). “Selected letters of William Faulkner”, Vintage

You must always know the past, for there is no real Was, there is only Is.

William Faulkner
Real, Past, History

Setting an example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing.

William Faulkner
Fun, Children, People

Pointless. . . . Like giving caviar to an elephant.

William Faulkner
Elephants, Giving, Caviar

If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us.

William Faulkner
Writing, Dostoyevsky, Written
"William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need.

William Faulkner
Horse, Jumping, Feel Good
"Visit to Two-Finger Typist". LIFE magazine, July 14, 1961.

My, my. A body does get around.

William Faulkner
Doe, Body
Jack L. Capps, William Faulkner (1979). “Light in August: a concordance to the novel”

There is no such thing as a bad whisky. Some whiskies just happen to be better than others.

William Faulkner
Drinking, Scotch, Whiskey

The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn't have needed anyone since.

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

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.

William Faulkner
Writing, Artist, Editors

Our freedom must be buttressed by a homogeny equally and unchallengeably free, no matter what color they are, so that all the other inimical forces everywhere -- systems political or religious or racial or national -- will not just respect us because we practice freedom, they will fear us because we do.

William Faulkner
Religious, Color, Practice
William Faulkner (2011). “Essays, Speeches & Public Letters”, p.151, Modern Library

This does not matter. This is not anything yet. It all depends on what you do with it, afterward.

William Faulkner
Doe, Matter, Depends
William Faulkner (1985). “Novels, 1930-1935”, Library of America

The scattered tea goes with the leaves and every day a sunset dies.

William Faulkner
Sunset, Tea, Dies
William Faulkner (1994). “Novels 1942-1954”

Just when do men that have different blood in them stop hating one another?

William Faulkner
Hate, Men, Blood
William Faulkner (1985). “Novels, 1930-1935”, Library of America

A writer is trying to create believable people in credible moving situations in the most moving way he can.

William Faulkner
Moving, People, Trying

The poets are wrong of course […] But then poets are almost always wrong about facts. That's because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple and natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it.

William Faulkner
Hate, Simple, Natural Instinct
William Faulkner (2011). “Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion”, p.420, Modern Library

Life was created in the valleys. It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down.

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

I listen to the voices.

William Faulkner
Voice

Memory believes before knowing remembers. [Light in August]

William Faulkner
Memories, Believe, Light

If there was anything at all in the Book, anything of hope and peace for His blind and bewildered spawn which He had chosen above all others to offer immortality, THOU SHALT NOT KILL must be it.

William Faulkner
Book, Blind, Immortality
William Faulkner (2012). “A Rose for Emily and Other Stories: A Rose for Emily; The Hound; Turn About; That Evening Sun; Dry September; Delta Autumn; Barn Burning; An Odor of Verbena”, p.164, Random House

We shall not kill and maybe next time we even won't.

William Faulkner
Next, Maybe Next Time, Next Time

The reason I don't like interviews is that I seem to react violently to personal questions. If the questions are about the work, I try to answer them. When they are about me, I may answer or I may not, but even if I do, if the same question is asked tomorrow, the answer may be different.

William Faulkner
Trying, Different, Answers

That's a very good way to learn the craft of writing - from reading.

William Faulkner
Reading, Writing, Crafts

You're looking, sir, at a very dull survivor of a very gaudy life. Crippled, paralyzed in both legs. Very little I can eat, and my sleep is so near waking that it's hardly worth the name. I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider.

William Faulkner
Sleep, Names, Legs

It is just dawn, daylight: that gray and lonely suspension filled with the peaceful and tentative waking of birds. The air, inbreathed, is like spring water. He breathes deep and slow, feeling with each breath himself diffuse in the natural grayness, becoming one with loneliness and quiet that has never known fury or despair. "That was all I wanted," he thinks, in a quiet and slow amazement. "That was all, for thirty years. That didn't seem to be a whole lot to ask in thirty years.

William Faulkner
Lonely, Loneliness, Spring

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