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William Faulkner

William Faulkner Quotes

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Famous William Faulkner Quotes

“It always takes a man that never made much at any thing to tell you how to run your business, though. Like these college professors without a whole pair of socks to his name, telling you how to make a million in ten years, and a woman that couldn't even get a husband can always tell you how to raise a family.”

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Book:The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)
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“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
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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.”

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Author: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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“People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can't know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do -after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world's anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.”

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Author:William Faulkner
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