Quotessence
Home / Authors / William Faulkner
William Faulkner

William Faulkner Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsWritingPeopleKnowsLittlesLongThinkingTryingArtistEnoughLifeWayArtNeedsDreamWorldDoeBookMatter

Famous William Faulkner Quotes

“'I never feel the need to discuss my work with anyone. No, I am too busy writing it. It has got to please me and if it does I don't need to talk about it. If it doesn't please me, talking about it won't improve it, since the only thing to improve it is to work on it some more. I am not a literary man but only a writer. I don't get any pleasure from talking shop.”

IfsMenNeedsFeelsWritingDoePleasureTalkingPleaseBusyShopsToo BusyPlease Me
Author:William Faulkner
Create image

“I had learned a little about writing from Soldier's Pay - how to approach language, words: not with seriousness so much as an essayist does, but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite; even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions.”

WritingKindLittlesDoeJoyLanguagePayApproachIntentionSoldierSeriousnessEssayistsDynamiteLanguage Words
Book:Essays, Speeches & Public Letters
Create image

“Sometimes I aint so sho who's got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint. Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It's like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.”

ThinkingMenWayDoeSometimesCrazyBalancePureFellowsMajorityFolksSane
Book:Faulkner's county: tales of Yoknapatawpha county
Create image

“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”

WritingTryingLongDoeI CanEnoughCharacterMovingCan DoBehindsFeetPaperPencilsFiction WritingWriters And WritingFiction WritersWriting FictionWriting By WritersCreativity And WritingPaper And Pencil
Book:Faulkner at West Point
Create image

“I notice how it takes a lazy man, a man that hates moving, to get set on moving once he does get started off, the same as when he was set on staying still, like it aint the moving he hates so much as the starting and the stopping. And like he would be kind of proud of whatever come up to make the moving or the setting still look hard. He set there on the wagon hunched up, blinking, listening to us tell about how quick the bridge went and how high the water was, and I be durn if he didn't act like he was proud of it, like he had made the river rise himself.”

IfsMenLooksKindDoeMadeStillsHardWould BeMovingHateWaterListeningProudRiversStartingCome UpSettingSettingsBridgesLazyStayingBe KindStoppingWagonsLazy Man
Book:The Sound and the Fury: And As I Lay Dying
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image