William Faulkner

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

The only thing that matters is the work. The work is the only thing that matters.

The artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely ruthless, he will steal from anybody, anywhere, anything to get the work done.

The past is not dead. It is not even past.

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

A writer is a failed reader.

I decline to accept the end of man. 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 and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny but inexhaustible voice, still talking.

Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.

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.

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.

The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one.

If a story is in you, it has to come out.

Man will not merely endure: he will prevail.

Memory believes before knowing remembers.

Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

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.

The artist is of no importance unless he is able to use his talents in the service of something greater than himself.

I have a strong suspicion that the only thing that keeps a lot of writers going is the possibility that someday they will write something that will be so good that it will shut them up permanently.

The human heart in conflict with itself... alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

People need trouble. A childbirth, the flight of an airplane, would not be enough excitement to sustain them. They need an old-fashioned fight.