Quotes from book

The Sound and the Fury

“Wonder. Go on and wonder.”

“I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue…”

“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.”

“Even sound seemed to fail in this air, like the air was worn out with carrying sounds so long.”

“It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret. Father said that. That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels. That had no sister.”

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

“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…”

“Because Father said clocks slay time. He said time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

“I took out my watch and listened to it clicking away, not knowing it couldn't even lie”

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

“A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune”

“They all talked at once, their voices insistent and contradictory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires become words.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Caddy smelled like trees.”

“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.”

“It's not when you realise that nothing can help you - religion, pride, anything - it's when you realise that you don't need any aid.”

“I am not one of those women who can stand things.”

“I say money has no value; it's just the way you spend it.”