The Faulkner Reader Quotes

“Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”
― William Faulkner, The Faulkner Reader: The Sound and the Fury, Selections from Other Novels, Three Novellas, Nine Stories, The Nobel Prize Address, etc.

“Then that had passed. It was 1923 and I wrote a book and discovered that my doom, fate, was to keep on writing books: not for any exterior or ulterior purpose: just writing the books for the sake of writing the books;”
― William Faulkner, The Faulkner Reader: The Sound and the Fury, Selections from Other Novels, Three Novellas, Nine Stories, The Nobel Prize Address, etc.

“Versh said, “You get them froze onto that gate, then what you do. Whyn’t you wait for them in the house.” He put my hands into my pockets. I could hear him rattling in the leaves. I could smell the cold. The gate was cold. “Here some hickeynuts. Whooey. Git up that tree. Look here at this squirl, Benjy.” I couldn’t feel the gate at all, but I could smell the bright cold. “You better put them hands back in your pockets.” Caddy was walking. Then she was running, her booksatchel swinging and jouncing behind her. “Hello, Benjy.” Caddy said. She opened the gate and came in and stooped down. Caddy smelled like leaves. “Did you come to meet me.” she said. “Did you come to meet Caddy. What”
― William Faulkner, The Faulkner Reader: The Sound and the Fury, Selections from Other Novels, Three Novellas, Nine Stories, The Nobel Prize Address, etc.