William Faulkner idézet

oldal 5

„Ha legközelebb bárkit is megpróbálsz elcsábítani, ne beszélgetéssel, se szavakkal tedd. A nők többet tudnak a szavakról, mint a férfiak valaha is fognak. És tudják, milyen keveset tudnak jelenteni.”

„Soha ne félj felemelni a hangod az őszinteségért, az igazságért és az együttérzésért az igazságtalanság, a hazugság és a kapzsiság ellen. Ha az emberek a világ minden tájáról megtennék ezt, megváltoztatnák a földet.”

„Mindig álmodozz és lőj magasabbra, mint ahogy tudnál. Ne fáradj csak azért, hogy jobb légy, mint kortársaid vagy elődeid. Próbálj jobb lenni magadnál.”

„Nem úszhat új távlatokba, amíg nincs bátorsága elveszíteni szem elől a partot.”

„Szabadnak kell lennünk. Nem azért, mert szabadságot követelünk, hanem azért, mert azt gyakoroljuk.”

„Talán igazuk volt, amikor a szerelmet könyvekbe foglalták. Talán nem is tudna máshol élni.”

„Úgy érzem magam, mint egy nedves mag vadon a forró, sötét földben.”

„Az írásban minden kedvesedet meg kell ölnöd.”

„Ne légy 'író'. Légy írás.”

„Hányszor feküdtem már az esőben egy idegen tetőn, és gondoltam az otthonomra.”

„Mintha nem is annyira az számítana, hogy mit csinál egy fickó, hanem az, hogy az emberek többsége hogyan néz rá, amikor csinálja.”

“The sun, an hour above the horizon, is poised like a bloody egg upon a crest of thunderheads; the light has turned copper: in the eye portentous, in the nose sulphurous, smelling of lightning.”

“It's because I'm alone.. If I could just feel it, it would be different, because I would not be alone. But if I were not alone, everybody would know it. And he could do so much for me, and then I would not be alone. Then I could be all right alone.”

“Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”

“I was wrong. I admit it. I believed that there were things which still mattered just because they had mattered once. But I was wrong. Nothing matters but breath, breathing, to know and to be alive.”

“There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty; then he’s a damn fool if he doesn’t.”

“It was like something you have dreaded and feared and dodged for years until it seemed like all your life, then despite everything it happened to you and all it was was just pain, all it did was hurt and so it was all over, all finished, all right.”

“Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too.”

“And he was not old enough to talk and say nothing at the same time.”

“Like a fellow running from or toward a gun ain't got time to worry whether the word for what he is doing is courage or cowardice.”

“Knowing not grieving remembers a thousand savage and lonely streets.”

“Did you ever have a sister? did you?”

“There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need.”

“I believe in God, God. God, I believe in God.”

“One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”

“There is no such thing as was—only is. If was existed, there would be no grief or sorrow.”

“… how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.”

“Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.”

“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.”

“We shall not kill and maybe next time we even won't.”

“I would say that music is the easiest means in which to express, but since words are my talent, I must try to express clumsily in words what the pure music would have done better.”

“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. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or
steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.”

“When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow.”

“That’s what they mean by the womb of time: the agony and the despair of spreading bones, the hard girdle in which lie the outraged entrails of events.”

“Who gathers the withered rose?”

“… surely there is something in madness, even the demoniac, which Satan flees, aghast at his own handiwork, and which God looks on in pity..”

“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.”

“You men,' she says. 'You durn men.”

“Man must have light. He must live in the fierce full constant glare of light, where all shadow will be defined and sharp and unique and personal: the shadow of his own singular rectitude or baseness. All human evils have to come out of obscurity and darkness, where there is nothing to dog man constantly with the shape of his own deformity.”

“Art is not concerned with environment either; it doesn't care where it is … 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.”