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Let the past abolish the past when -- and if -- it can substitute something better.

William Faulkner

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William Faulkner
Age: 64 †
Born: 1897
Born: September 25
Died: 1962
Died: July 6
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Writer
New Albany
Mississippi
William Cuthbert Faulkner
William Falkner
William Cuthbert Falkner
Past
Better
Something
Abolish
Substitute
Substitutes

More quotes by William Faulkner

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There is that might-have-been which is the single rock we cling to above the maelstrom of unbearable reality.
William Faulkner
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A man or a race either if he's any good can survive his past without even needing to escape from it and not because of the high quite often only too rhetorical rhetoric of humanity but for the simple indubitable practical reason of his future: that capacity to survive and absorb and endure and still be steadfast.
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There were many things I could do for two or three days and earn enough money to live on for the rest of the month. By temperament I'm a vagabond and a tramp.
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I never promise a woman anything nor let her know what I'm going to give her. That's the only way to manage them. Always keep them guessing. If you cant think of any other way to surprise them, give them a bust in the jaw.
William Faulkner
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I believe in God, God. God, I believe in God.
William Faulkner
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Gettysburg. . . . You cant understand it. You would have to be born there.
William Faulkner
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I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10:00 o'clock every day.
William Faulkner
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My, my. A body does get around.
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A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.
William Faulkner
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I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue.
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The phenomenon of war is its hermaphroditism: the principles of victory and of defeat inhabit the same body and the necessary opponent, enemy, is merely the bed they self-exhaust each other on.
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People need trouble - a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.
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A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station….
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In my opinion it's a shame that there is so much work in the world.
William Faulkner
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Hollywood is a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.
William Faulkner
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The reason I don't like interviews is that I seem to react violently to personal questions. If the questions are about the work, I try to answer them. When they are about me, I may answer or I may not, but even if I do, if the same question is asked tomorrow, the answer may be different.
William Faulkner
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This does not matter. This is not anything yet. It all depends on what you do with it, afterward.
William Faulkner
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She was the captain of her soul
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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.
William Faulkner
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Maybe the only thing worse than having to give gratitude constantlyall the time, is having to accept it.
William Faulkner