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You must always know the past, for there is no real Was, there is only Is.

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
History
Past
Must
Real
Always

More quotes by William Faulkner

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One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
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...how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.
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The writer doesn't need economic freedom. All he needs is a pencil and some paper.
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The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true.
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That's sad too, people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today
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To me, all human behavior is unpredictable and, considering man's frailty... and... the ramshackle universe he functions in, it's... all irrational.
William Faulkner
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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.
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.
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It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.
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If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time
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Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
William Faulkner
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Love doesn't die the men and women do.
William Faulkner
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The writer's only responsibility is to his art.
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The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means.
William Faulkner
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Hemingway shot himself. I don't like a man that takes the short way home.
William Faulkner
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When ideas come, I write them when they don't come, I don't.
William Faulkner
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All men are just accumulations dolls stuffed with sawdust swept up from the trash heaps where all previous dolls had been thrown away.
William Faulkner
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They will endure. They are better than we are. Stronger than we are. Their vices are vices aped from white men or that white men and bondage have taught them: improvidence and intemperance and evasion-not laziness: evasion: of what white men had set them to, not for their aggrandizement or even comfort but his own.
William Faulkner
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I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.
William Faulkner
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The only rule I have is to quit while it’s still hot. Never write yourself out. Always quit when it’s going good. Then it’s easier to take it up again. If you exhaust yourself, then you’ll get into a dead spell and you’ll have trouble with it.
William Faulkner