William Faulkner

"To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi."

253 likes

Source: William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12. Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

About the author

William Faulkner

William Faulkner

Novelist, Poet, Playwright

William Faulkner was an American writer known for his complex narratives and innovative use of time and memory, particularly in works like 'As I Lay Dying.'

All quotes by William Faulkner →

Same author

More quotes by William Faulkner

See all →
William Faulkner Novelist, Poet, Playwright

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth."

Read quote
William Faulkner Novelist, Poet, Playwright

"The past is never dead. It's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose providence dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events, but some of us feel it always."

Read quote
William Faulkner Novelist, Poet, Playwright

"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."

Read quote