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

— William Faulkner

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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William Faulkner214

American writer 1897–1962

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“He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1950)

“A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”

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“Teach him he must deny himself.”

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“You cannot teach creativity—how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.” Mario Vargas Llosa”

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“The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“It is only the basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without talking of "raging waves," "remorseless floods," "ravenous billows," etc.; and it is one of the signs of the highest power in a writer to check all such habits of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the pure fact, out of which if any feeling comes to him or his reader, he knows it must be a true one.”

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“All writing is an antisocial act, since the writer is a man who can speak freely only when alone; to be himself he must lock himself up, to communicate he must cut himself off from all communication; and in this there is something always a little mad.”

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“You can teach the writing of verse.. like prose.. an instrument.. and the recognition of true poetry. The rest, writers must teach them selves.”

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“A big enough artist, I say, can eat anything, must eat everything and then alchemize it. Only the feeble writer is afraid of expansion.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

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“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

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