Try to be better than yourself.
WILLIAM FAULKNERTry to be better than yourself.
WILLIAM FAULKNERUnless you’re ashamed of yourself now and then, you’re not honest
WILLIAM FAULKNERThe last sound on the worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a homemade spaceship and already quarreling about where they are going next.
WILLIAM FAULKNERSuccess is feminine and like a woman, if you cringe before her, she will override you
WILLIAM FAULKNERI’d have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.
WILLIAM FAULKNERThe quality an artist must have is objectivity in judging his work, plus the honesty and courage not to kid himself about it.
WILLIAM FAULKNERYour illusions are a part of you like your bones and flesh and memory.
WILLIAM FAULKNERIf people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.
WILLIAM FAULKNERAt one time I thought the most important thing was talent.
WILLIAM FAULKNERHow false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.
WILLIAM FAULKNERTo understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.
WILLIAM FAULKNERSome things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame.
WILLIAM FAULKNERThe most important thing is insight, that is to be – curious – to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does.
WILLIAM FAULKNERThe past is never dead, it is not even past.
WILLIAM FAULKNERJust like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.
WILLIAM FAULKNERThe 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.
WILLIAM FAULKNER