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William Faulkner

William Faulkner Quotes

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Famous William Faulkner Quotes

“We will have to choose not between color nor race nor religion nor between East and West either, but simply between being slaves and being free. And we will have to choose completely and for good; the time is already past now when we can choose a little of each, a little of both. We can choose a state of slavedom, and if we are powerful enough to be among the top two or three or ten, we can have a certain amount of license - until someone more powerful rises and has us machine-gunned against a cellar wall.”

IfsLittlesTwoStatesEnoughWisdomPastCertainThreePoliticsPowerfulRaceEconomyColorWallAmountTenMachinesSlaveWestEastLiberalismLicenseBeing FreeCellarsEast And West
Book:Essays, Speeches & Public Letters
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“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.”

PeopleIfsWayWantGivingWritingBelieveMatterDoneEnoughWould BeYoungArtistMistakeTeachAdviceTheoryFoolBeatsErrorsTechniqueSupremeAdmireVanityGood EnoughSurgeryWriting AdviceShortcutsYoung WritersGood ArtistBricklaying
Author:William Faulkner
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“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
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“They say love dies between two people. That’s wrong. It doesn’t die. It just leaves you, goes away, if you aren’t good enough, worthy enough. It doesn’t die; you’re the the one that dies. It’s like the ocean: if you’re no good, if you begin to make a bad smell in it, it just spews you up somewhere to die. You die anyway, but I had rather drown in the ocean than be urped up onto a strip of dead beach and be dried away by the sun into a little foul smear with no name to it, just this was for an epitaph”

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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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