“If you write something that you love beyond all reason, it is wrong and you should strike it out.” — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
It is the writer's privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10:00 o'clock every day. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“Writing is one-third imagination, one-third experience, and one third observation.” — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning.” — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoevski, all of us. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
Nothing can injure a man's writing if he's a first-rate writer. If a man is not a first-rate writer, there's not anything… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
The writer's only responsibility is to his art...If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
A hack writer who would have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tried out a few of the old proven 'sure-fire'… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
With me, a story usually begins with a single idea or mental picture. The writing of the story is simply a matter… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
I think that-that anyone, the painter, the musician, the writer works in a-a kind of an-an insane fury. He's demon-driven. He can… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
He [the writer] must, teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“Let me repeat. I have not read all the work of this present generation of writing. I have not had time yet.… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that — the young man or the young… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man must possess or teach… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“[T]he young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“And George Farr had the town, the earth, the world to himself and his sorrow. Music came faint as a troubling rumor… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by the word. It is every individual's individual code of… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“The river itself is not a hundred yards across, and pa and Vernon and Vardaman and Dewey Dell are the only things in sight… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
The quality an artist must have is objectivity in judging his work, plus the honesty and courage not to kid himself about it. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a colored band and carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster's skull,… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“What matters is at the end of life, when you're about to pass into oblivion, that you've at least scratched 'Kilroy was here,' on… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
I've got to feel the pencil and see the words at the end of the pencil, — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
And sure enough, even waiting will end...if you can just wait long enough. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice,… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi. — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“What modren ideas?” pap said. “I didn’t know there was but one idea about work—until it is done, it ain’t done, and when it… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image
“It was only as he put his hand on the door that he became aware of complete silence beyond it, a silence which he… — William Faulkner Copy Share Image