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William Faulkner Quotes - Page 8

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

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

William Faulkner
Certain, Amount

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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)

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

Everyone in the South has no time for reading because they are all too busy writing.

William Faulkner
Reading, Writing, Busy

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.

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

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”

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

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.

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

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!”

It always takes a man that never made much at any thing to tell you how to run your business, though. Like these college professors without a whole pair of socks to his name, telling you how to make a million in ten years, and a woman that couldn't even get a husband can always tell you how to raise a family.

William Faulkner
Running, Husband, College
William Faulkner (2016). “The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)”, p.125, W. W. Norton & Company

That which is destroying the Church is not the outward groping of those within it nor the inward groping of those without, but the professionals who control it and who have removed the bells from its steeples.

William Faulkner
Church, Inward, Bells
William Faulkner (1972). “Light in August”, Vintage

I think the serious things really are the things that make for happiness--people and things that are compatible, love.... So many people are content just to sit around and talk about them instead of getting out and attaining them. As if life were a joke of some kind.

William Faulkner
Life, Thinking, People
William Faulkner (1955). “Mosquitoes”, New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation

The writer's only responsibility is to his art...If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.

William Faulkner
Mother, Art, Responsibility
Quoted in Paris Review, Spring 1956

It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret.

William Faulkner
Regret, Habit, Idle
William Faulkner (2011). “FAULKNER READER”, p.79, Modern Library

It is as though the space between us were time: an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before us in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread an not the interval between.

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

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