“Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar…”

—  William Faulkner , book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgi…" by William Faulkner?
William Faulkner photo
William Faulkner 214
American writer 1897–1962

Related quotes

Louisa May Alcott photo

“Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.”

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) American novelist

Variant: Some stories are so familiar its like going home.

James Frazer photo

“They too, like so much that to the common eye seems solid, may melt into air, into thin air.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 69, Farewell to Nemi
Context: In the ages to come man may be able to predict, perhaps even to control, the wayward courses of the winds and the clouds, but hardly will his puny hands have strength to speed afresh our slackening planet in its orbit or rekindle the dying fire of the sun. Yet the philosopher who trembles at the idea of such distant catastrophes may console himself by reflecting that these gloomy apprehensions, like the earth and the sun themselves, are only parts of that unsubstantial world which thought has conjured up out of the void, and that the phantoms which the subtle enchantress has evoked to-day she may ban to-morrow. They too, like so much that to the common eye seems solid, may melt into air, into thin air.

Pat Conroy photo

“Walking the streets of Charleston in the late afternoons of August was like walking through gauze or inhaling damaged silk.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist
Stephen King photo

“But now the joy is gone and the sadness is back, the sadness feels like something deserved, the price of some not-quite-forgotten betrayal.”

Stephen King Dreamcatcher

Source: Dreamcatcher

Michael Moorcock photo

“I realized I was fulfilling mankind’s greatest dream—to fly like a bird, as naturally and as joyously as if the air were our familiar habitat.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 419)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Robert Frost photo

“Summoning artists to participate
In the august occasions of the state
Seems something artists ought to celebrate.
Today is for my cause a day of days.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration" (1960), the poem is also known as "Dedication". Frost had planned to read "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration" at John F. Kennedy's imauguration, but the blinding light from the sun and snow prompted him to recite "The Gift Outright" from memory. Source: Tuten, Nancy Lewis; Zubizarreta, John (2001). The Robert Frost Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 9780313294648
General sources
Variant: Summoning artists to participate
In the august occasions of the state
Seems something artists ought to celebrate.

Raymond Chandler photo

“Some days I feel like playing it smooth. Some days I feel like playing it like a waffle iron.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

Source: Trouble Is My Business

“The continent had to be discovered emotionally. It had to become a homeland and feel like home. The sense of overpowering space, the isolation, the warmth of summer, the garish light, the shiny-leafed trees, the birds and insects, the smell of air filled with dust, the strange silences, and the landscapes in all their oddness had to become familiar.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

A Land Half Won (1980)

Glen Cook photo

“There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 2, “The Plain of Fear” (p. 456)
Context: An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

Related topics