Quotes by William Faulkner

About William Faulkner:

William Cuthbert Faulkner is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.

William Faulkner

Government was founded on the working premiss of being primarily an asylum for ineptitude and indigence.

William Faulkner

Menfolks listens to somebody because of what he says. Women don't. They don't care what he said. They listens because of what he is.

William Faulkner

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

William Faulkner

It was too late. Maybe yesterday, while I was still a child, but not now. I knew too much, had seen too much, I was a child no longer now; innocence and childhood were forever lost, forever gone from me.

William Faulkner

I will never lie again.

William Faulkner

I lied," I said. ... "I know it," he said. "Then do something about it. Do anything, just so it's something." "I cant," he said. "There aint anything to do? Not anything?" "I didn't say that," Grandfather said. "I said I couldn't. You can." "What?" I...

William Faulkner

If all the businesses in town are run like country businesses, You are going to have a country town

William Faulkner

In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and I s...

William Faulkner

Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves.

William Faulkner

It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret. Father said that. That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels. That had no sister.

William Faulkner

It's not when you realise that nothing can help you - religion, pride, anything - it's when you realise that you don't need any aid.

William Faulkner

Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.

William Faulkner

Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar...

William Faulkner

I say money has no value; it's just the way you spend it.

William Faulkner

I'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 Faulkner

Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still, they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled. I hushed.

William Faulkner

And so I told myself to take that one. Because Father said clocks slay time. He said time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. The hands were extended, slightly off the horizon...

William Faulkner

A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune

William Faulkner

I give it (grandfather's watch) to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.

William Faulkner

Only Southerners have taken horsewhips and pistols to editors about the treatment or maltreatment of their manuscript. This--the actual pistols--was in the old days, of course, we no longer succumb to the impulse. But it is still there, within us.

William Faulkner

Author Bio

  • NameWilliam Faulkner
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • AliasesWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner
  • BornSeptember 25, 1897
  • DiedJuly 6, 1962
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Poet; Novelist; Short Story Writer; Playwright; Writer
  • WorksThe Sound And The Fury; As I Lay Dying; Light In August; Absalom, Absalom!; A Rose For Emily
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature; National Book Award