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William Faulkner Quotes about Writing

All William Faulkner Quotes Alcohol Art Bones Children Conflict Country Courage Desire Drinking Earth Evil Excellence Fun Funny Giving Grief Hate Heart History Home Honesty Honor House Hurt Imagination Inspiration Inspirational Leaving Life Literature Loneliness Love Lying Memories Motivational Opportunity Pain Past Patience Perfection Pride Reading Reality Regret Responsibility Running Sacrifice Salvation Shame Sin Sleep Sorrow Soul Suffering Teaching Time Today Victory Wall War Water Whiskey Wisdom Writing quotes

Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good,

Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.

William Faulkner

Writing, Epic, Study

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance-that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be-curiosity-to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got it or not.

William Faulkner

Writing, Thinking, Men

Writing a first draft is like trying to build a house in a strong wind.

William Faulkner

Strong, Writing, Wind

The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself

William Faulkner

Heart, Writing, Conflict

Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing.

William Faulkner

Writing

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.

William Faulkner

Drinking, Writing, Scotch Whisky

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

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.

William Faulkner

Writing, Darling

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

William Faulkner

Inspiring, Writing, May

"A Faulkner perspective: a companion-guide to the limited first edition of the Selected letters of William Faulkner".

You have to write badly in order to write well.

William Faulkner

Writing, Order, Wells

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. 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

Mistake, Believe, Writing

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

I had learned a little about writing from Soldier's Pay - how to approach language, words: not with seriousness so much as an essayist does, but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite; even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions.

William Faulkner

Writing, Language Words, Joy

William Faulkner (2011). “Essays, Speeches & Public Letters”, p.296, Modern Library

The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.

William Faulkner

Dream, Writing, Artist

When my horse is running good, I don't stop to give him sugar.

William Faulkner

Running, Horse, Writing

No man can write who is not first a humanitarian

William Faulkner

Writing, Men, Firsts

1957 In Time, 25 Feb.

A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.

William Faulkner

Teaching, Writing, Love And Honor

Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, 10 Dec. 1950

I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.

William Faulkner

Writing, Thinking, Knows

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

William Faulkner

Writing, Two, Imagination

The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. 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

Hope, Writing, Heart

Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, 10 Dec. 1950

I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10:00 o'clock every day.

William Faulkner

Inspiration, Writing, Clock

the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

William Faulkner

Writing, Heart, Agony

Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, 10 Dec. 1950

A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.

William Faulkner

Writing, Fiction, Telling The Truth

I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it.

William Faulkner

Writing, Long, Littles

Francis Lee Utley, William Faulkner, Lynn Z. Bloom, Arthur F. Kinney (1964). “Bear, man, & God: seven approaches to William Faulkner's The bear”

Read, read read. Read everything.

William Faulkner

Writing, Famous Writers, Writers Reading

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

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

William Faulkner

Reading, Writing, Busy

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