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William Faulkner Quotes about Writing - Page 2

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I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel

I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

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

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

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner
Moving, Writing, Character
William Faulkner, Joseph L. Fant, Robert Paul Ashley (1964). “Faulkner at West Point”, p.101, Univ. Press of Mississippi

With me, a story usually begins with a single idea or mental picture. The writing of the story is simply a matter of working up to that moment, to explain why it happened or what caused it to follow.

William Faulkner
Writing, Ideas, Fiction

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

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

All of us have failed to match our dream of perfection. I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. If I could write all my work again, I'm convinced I could do it better. This is the healthiest condition for an artist. That's why he keeps working, trying again: he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won't.

William Faulkner
Dream, Believe, Writing
1956 On his generation of writers. Interview in Paris Review, Spring.

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.

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

William Faulkner
Writing, Artist, Editors

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

William Faulkner
Reading, Writing, Crafts

I imagine as long as people will continue to read novels, people will continue to write them, or vice versa; unless of course the pictorial magazines and comic strips finally atrophy man's capacity to read, and literature really is on its way back to the picture writing in the Neanderthal cave.

William Faulkner
Writing, Men, Long

It's the most satisfying occupation man has discovered yet, because you never can quite do it as well as you want to, so there's always something to wake up tomorrow morning to do.

William Faulkner
Morning, Writing, Men

When ideas come, I write them; when they don't come, I don't.

William Faulkner
Writing, Ideas, Simplicity

'I never feel the need to discuss my work with anyone. No, I am too busy writing it. It has got to please me and if it does I don't need to talk about it. If it doesn't please me, talking about it won't improve it, since the only thing to improve it is to work on it some more. I am not a literary man but only a writer. I don't get any pleasure from talking shop.

William Faulkner
Writing, Men, Talking

I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it -- you can't teach it.

William Faulkner
Writing, Thinking, People

My ideal job? Landlord of a bordello! The company's good and the mornings are quiet, which is the best time to write.

William Faulkner
Morning, Jobs, Writing

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten 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. He must learn them again.

William Faulkner
Writing, Heart, Men
Speech Accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature, originally delivered December 10, 1950 in Stockholm Sweden

The only rule I have is to quit while it’s still hot. Never write yourself out. Always quit when it’s going good. Then it’s easier to take it up again. If you exhaust yourself, then you’ll get into a dead spell and you’ll have trouble with it.

William Faulkner
Writing, Hot, Quitting

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