As I Lay Dying Quotes

“It begins to rain. The first harsh, sparse, swift drops rush through the leaves and across the ground in a long sigh, as though of relief from intolerable suspense. They are big as buckshot, warm as though fired from a gun; they sweep across the lantern in a vicious hissing. Pa lifts his face, slackmouthed, the wet black rim of snuff plastered close along the base of his gums; from behind his slack-faced astonishment he 'muses as though from beyond time, upon the ultimate outrage. Cash looks once at the sky, then at the lantern. The saw has not faltered, the running gleam of its pistoning edge unbroken. "Get
something to cover the lantern," he says.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“Sometimes I think aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“The dead air shapes the dead earth in the dead darkness, further away than seeing shapes the dead earth. It lies dead and warm upon me, touching me naked through my clothes. I said You dont know what worry is. I dont know what it is. I dont know whether I am worrying or not. Whether I can or not. I dont know whether I can cry or not. I dont know whether I have tried to or not. I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind--and that of the minds of the ones who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind—and that of the minds of the ones who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“В къщата жените запяват. Още с първия куплет чуваме как гласовете им избуяват и набират увереност, ние ставаме, запътваме се към вратата, сваляме шапки и изплюваме сдъвкания тютюн. Не влизаме вътре. Спираме скупчени на стъпалата, стискаме шапки в ръцете си, отпуснати отпред или зад гърба, стоим с един крак изнесен напред и навели глави, мятаме по едно око ту встрани, ту към шапките в ръцете си, ту към земята, а мине не мине, и към небето или към сериозното смирено лице на някой от нас.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“Addie: My father said that the reason for living is getting ready to stay dead.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“Beneath the quilt she is no more than a bundle of rotten sticks”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“He could do so much for me if he just would. He could do everything for me.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying