William Faulkner quotes - page 9

If we Americans are to survive it will have to be because we choose and elect and defend to be first of all Americans; to present to the world one homogeneous and unbroken front, whether of white Americans or black ones or purple or blue or green. (William Faulkner)
When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. View quote
William Faulkner
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. View quote
William Faulkner
Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass. View quote
William Faulkner
It's like it ain't so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it. View quote
William Faulkner
The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean. View quote
William Faulkner
There is no was. View quote
William Faulkner
A gentleman accepts the responsibility of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences. View quote
William Faulkner
You intend to kiss me and yet you are going to all this damn trouble about it. View quote
William Faulkner
I am older at twenty than a lot of people who have died. View quote
William Faulkner
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. (William Faulkner)
And he was not old enough to talk and say nothing at the same time. View quote
William Faulkner
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. View quote
William Faulkner
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. View quote
William Faulkner
Now I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate the South? View quote
William Faulkner
At least wasn't nobody, no outsider, there to hear it so maybe even before next January he was able to believe hadn't none of it even been said, like miracle: what aint believed aint seen. View quote
William Faulkner
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. 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. View quote
William Faulkner
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass. View quote
William Faulkner
Read, read, read. Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window. View quote
William Faulkner
No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors. View quote
William Faulkner
No battle is ever won ... victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. (William Faulkner)
The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it. View quote
William Faulkner
People need trouble -- a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy. View quote
William Faulkner
Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. View quote
William Faulkner
The salvation of the world is in man's suffering. View quote
William Faulkner