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William Faulkner

William Faulkner Quotes

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Famous William Faulkner Quotes

“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”

UsedOrderQualityGratitudeElectricityThanksgivingThank YouThankfulnessBeing ThankfulThankful GratitudeThanksgiving DayExpressing GratitudeThanksgiving And GratitudeThanksgiving ThanksThanksgiving GratitudeThank You GratitudeGratitude And ThanksGreat GratitudeLove And GratitudeInspirational GratitudeThanksgiving HolidayInspirational ThanksgivingHappy ThanksgivingLove GratitudeThanksgiving InspirationalLove ThanksgivingThanksgiving GreetingsThanksgiving LoveFamily ThanksgivingThanksgiving WishesGrateful InspirationalThanksgiving And FamilyThanksgiving And LoveThanksgiving FamilyChristian ThanksgivingHappy Thanksgiving WishesFriends ThanksgivingHoliday GivingThanksgiving ChristianGreat ThanksgivingThanksgiving TurkeyHappy Thanksgiving LoveTurkeys On ThanksgivingGratitude For FriendsFamily GratitudeThankful For BlessingsThanksgiving CardThankful For Family
Author:William Faulkner
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“The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it.”

LoveInspirationalEndsEnoughWisdomDreamLosesSeekingYour DreamsFollow Your DreamsI Had A DreamDreamyBroken DreamsFollowing DreamsFollowing My DreamsInspirational Dream
Book:Flags in the Dust: The complete text of Faulkner's third novel, which appeared in a cut version as Sartoris
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“When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it...his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it...”

PeopleKnowsWellsMayMeanChildrenLongDoeEnoughDesireSpeakStepsBoysKnow HowCrimeIgnoranceFruitCommitInnocenceLong AgoElevenChildren Innocence
Author:William Faulkner
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“Yes sir. You can be more careless, you can put more trash in [a novel] and be excused for it. In a short story that's next to the poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can't. I mean by that the good short stories like Chekhov wrote. That's why I rate that second - it's because it demands a nearer absolute exactitude. You have less room to be slovenly and careless. There's less room in it for trash.”

MeanStoriesNextRoomsNovelDemandAbsolutesRateCraftsShort StoryTrashCarelessChekhovExactitude
Author:William Faulkner
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“At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance-that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be-curiosity-to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got it or not.”

IfsThinkingMenWritingTryingDoeImportantMatterMightYoungDifferencesWonderTeachTalentPagesTrainingInfiniteImportant ThingsTrainCuriosityInsightYoung ManOne TimeIntoleranceMuseRuthlessParagraph
Author:William Faulkner
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“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.”

MenWayLifeYearsLooksMeanMovingArtistBehindsWallHundredAimFinalsStrangerMortalsFixedSomedayImmortalArtificialOblivionIrrevocable
Author:William Faulkner
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“It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books. [] It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: he made the books and he died.”

MadeBookIndividualEffortAmbitionDiedAimLeavingRefuseSentencesBentPrintedMy AmbitionStory Of My LifeEpitaphPrinted Books
Book:Selected letters of William Faulkner
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“So, never be afraid. Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice and lying and greed. If you, not just you in this room tonight, but in all the thousands of other rooms like this one about the world today and tomorrow and next week, will do this, not as a class or classes, but as individuals, men and women, you will change the earth.”

IfsMenWorldTodayEarthLyingNextIndividualVoiceRoomsCompassionClassWeekHonestyTomorrowMen And WomenRaisesGreedInjusticeTonightWorld TodayNext WeekTruth And HonestyToday And TomorrowRaise Your Voice
Author:William Faulkner
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“The poets are wrong of course […] But then poets are almost always wrong about facts. That's because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple and natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it.”

FactsHateCoursesSpeakNaturalSimplePoetInstinctTerrifiedExaltedAlways WrongNatural Instinct
Book:Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion
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