Quote

I had learned a little about writing from Soldier's Pay - how to approach language, words: not with seriousness so much as an essayist does, but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions.

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
Women
Pay
Dynamite
Littles
Perhaps
Alert
Little
Respect
Secretly
Writing
Joy
Seriousness
Even
Learned
Intentions
Much
Words
Soldier
Essayist
Kind
Language
Intention
Unscrupulous
Doe
Approach
Essayists

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Then Ben wailed again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound. It might have been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a conjunction of planets.
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Our freedom must be buttressed by a homogeny equally and unchallengeably free, no matter what color they are, so that all the other inimical forces everywhere -- systems political or religious or racial or national -- will not just respect us because we practice freedom, they will fear us because we do.
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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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The air brightened, the running shadow patches were now the obverse, and it seemed to him that the fact that the day was clearing was another cunning stroke on the part of the foe, the fresh battle toward which he was carrying ancient wounds.
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It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours he can't drink for eight hours he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work.
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Hollywood is a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.
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Pouring out liquor is like burning books.
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A man is the sum of his misfortunes.
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Teach yourself by your own mistakes people learn only by error.
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It feels almost soft, like something to be caressed. Only gold feels that way.
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And when I think about that, I think that if nothing but being married will help a man, he's durn nigh hopeless.
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Men have been pacifists for every reason under the sun except to avoid danger and fighting.
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Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written.
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The whiskey died away in time and was renewed and died again, but the street ran on. From that night the thousand streets ran as one street, with imperceptible corners and changes of scene.
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You don’t love because: you love despite not for the virtues, but despite the faults.
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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.
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The writer in America isn't part of the culture of this country. He's like a fine dog. People like him around, but he's of no use.
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When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow.
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Well, Bud, he said, looking at me, I'll be damned if you don't go to a lot of trouble to have your fun. Kidnapping, then fighting. What do you do on your holidays? Burn houses?
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The clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse of the decaying house itself, after a while it whirred and cleared its throat and struck six times.
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