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William Faulkner

William Faulkner Quotes

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Famous William Faulkner Quotes

“Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling.”

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Author:William Faulkner
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“You get born and you try this and you don't know why, only you keep on trying it and you are born at the same time with a lot of other people, all mixed up with them, like trying to, having to, move your arms and legs with strings, only the same strings are hitched to all the other arms and legs and the others all trying and they don't know why either except that the strings are all in one another's way.”

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Author:William Faulkner
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“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.”

WayWritingMayCan DoChanceInspiringCreative WritingTake A ChanceWriting AdviceGood WritingGood WritersFiction WritingWriters And WritingFiction WritersWriting By WritersInspire CreativityInspiration And CreativityCreativity And WritingInspiration To WriteFamous WritersBad WritingCreative WritersWriting From Famous AuthorsBusiness WritingGood AuthorsWriting Things Down
Author:William Faulkner
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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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“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
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“I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine and tranquil upon tideflats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies hovering a long way off.”

WayLittlesLongLightLastsClearSawsPiecesAirBrokenRiversMirrorsSmellButterflyPaleCurvesLong WayTremblingTranquilDuskHoveringLike A Butterfly
Book:The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)
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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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“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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