William Faulkner: Trending quotes

William Faulkner trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
William Faulkner: 428 quotes25 likes

“She loved him not only in spite of but because he himself was incapable of love.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

“Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still, they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled. I hushed.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

“Memory believes before knowing remembers.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Variant: Memory believes before knowing remembers.

[Light in August]
Source: As I Lay Dying

“An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.”

William Faulkner

“You can't. You just have to.”

William Faulkner

“I'd have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

“How do our lives ravel out
into the no-wind, no-sound,
the weary gestures wearily recapitulant:
echoes of old compulsions with no-hand on no-string:
in sunset we fall into furious attitudes,
dead gestures of dolls.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

“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

Paris Review interview (1958)

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

William Faulkner book Light in August

Source: Light in August

“I could just remember how my father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Variant: ... the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.
Source: As I Lay Dying

“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

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

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

“Everything in Los Angeles is too large, too loud and usually banal in concept… The plastic asshole of the world.”

William Faulkner

“We have to start teaching ourselves not to be afraid.”

William Faulkner

“And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

“You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”

William Faulkner

Paris Review interview (1958)
Context: The two great men in my time were Mann and Joyce. You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.

“Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury