William Faulkner

The long patient suffering of the South has taught us that most human tragedy is caused by man's own lack of understanding of himself and of his fellow man.

I learned little save that most of the deeds, good and bad both, incurring opprobrium or plaudits or reward either, within the scope of man's abilities, must be performed from the cradle to the grave with not so much as the wink of an eye.

Success is feminine and like a woman, if you cringe before her, she will override you.

The fact that we don't know this man who's going to die tomorrow morning is not important. What's important is that we all die.

Every man has his own ideas about death. But it's not up to us to judge them.

I think that the writer should be a technician first and a writer second. He should be a good technician, and then he can write anything he wants.

The duty of the artist is to lift people up, not to depress them.

I am not a Christian, but I believe in the teachings of Christ.

The artist must create a world of his own, a world that is not real but truer than real.

One of the saddest things is to see a lost thing that can't be put back.

The South is another thing. It's not a place; it's a state of mind.

I would say that music is the easiest means in which to express, but since words are my talent, I must try to express clumsily in words what the pure music would have done better.

The writer has no privilege to complain. He has only the privilege to write.

Perhaps they were right in putting me in the army; it was the only way to make me live.

I hate all symbols. They are substitutes for the real thing.

The only thing a writer knows is that he must write.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we bring to ourselves.

The artist is always alone, always solitary.

I think man is immortal, because the spirit is eternal.