891 Quotes by William Faulkner

It is because so much happens. Too much happens. That’s it. Man performs, engenders, so much more than he can or should have to bear. That’s how he finds that he can bear anything. That’s it. That’s what is so terrible. That he can bear anything, anything.

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.

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. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.

You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.

The writer’s only responsibility is to his art.

He puts his shoes on, stomping into them, like he does everything, like he is hoping all the time he really cant do it and can quit trying to.

I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10:00 o’clock every day.

Don Quixote – I read that every year, as some do the Bible.

Don’t do what you can do – try what you can’t do.