891 Quotes by William Faulkner

The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering.

A dream is not a very safe thing to be near, Bayard. I know; I had one once. It’s like a loaded pistol with a hair trigger: if it stays alive long enough, somebody is going to be hurt. But if it’s a good dream, it’s worth it. There are not many dreams in the world, but there are a lot of human lives. And one human life or two dozen – – ” “Are not worth anything?” “No. Not anything. – Listen.

And then he died. He did not know he was dead.

No man can write who is not first a humanitarian.

And when a man that old takes up money-hunting, it’s like when he takes up gambling or whisky or women. He aint going to have time to quit.

Gough never pretended to perfection or to sainthood – well, hardly ever. Although when he set off the metal detector at airport security, he would blame his aura.

Above the counter where the ranks of crisp shapes behind the glass her neat gray face her hair tight and sparse from her neat gray skull, spectacles in neat gray rims riding approaching like something on a wire, like a cash box in a store. She looked like a librarian. Something among dusty shelves of ordered certitudes long divorced from reality, desiccating peacefully, as if a breath of that air which sees injustice done.

Here I am I am tired I am tired of running of having to carry my life like it was a basket of eggs.

People need trouble – a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.