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William Faulkner

William Faulkner Quotes

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Famous William Faulkner Quotes

“He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”

PeopleNeedsLongMatterUsedSinTalkingPridePrayingOne DayShapesLong TimeBlindSalvationRight Time
Book:The Best of Faulkner
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“In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn't it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That's why that's sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it.”

MenBelieveMeanHas BeensSaidMatterStatesLyingFatherLeftBoysSouthAshamedVirginsVirginitySo Sad
Book:The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)
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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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“Where the shadow of the bridge fell I could see down for a long way, but not as far as the bottom. When you leave a leaf in water a long time after awhile the tissue will be gone and the delicate fibres waving slow as the motion of sleep. They don't touch one another, no matter how knotted up they once were, no matter how close they lay once to the bones.”

WayLongMatterWaterSleepGoneLong TimeShadowLaysBottomBonesBridgesDelicateLeafsLong WayTissues
Book:The Sound and the Fury: And As I Lay Dying
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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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“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... If we in America have reached that point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don't deserve to survive, and probably won't.”

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Author:William Faulkner
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