William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulknerwas an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 September 1897
CityNew Albany, MS
determination optimistic suffering
If happy I can be I will, if suffer I must I can.
children pride motherhood
That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride.
strange folly just-one
Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
fighting men sun
Men have been pacifists for every reason under the sun except to avoid danger and fighting.
care said dont-care
Menfolks listens to somebody because of what he says. Women don't. They don't care what he said. They listens because of what he is.
reason knows
The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true.
crazy men thinking
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.
two long people
As long as I live under the capitalistic system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.
lying knowing not-knowing
I took out my watch and listened to it clicking away, not knowing it couldn't even lie
nice ravel would-be
If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time
stars boxes stills
Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still, they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled. I hushed.
hope writing heart
The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
butterfly curves mirrors
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.
dream possible-and-impossible perfection
All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the base of our splendid failure to do the impossible.