William Faulkner Quotes (188 Quotes)
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- The sun, an hour above the horizon, is poised like a bloody egg upon a crest of thunderheads; the light has turned copper: in the eye portentous, in the nose sulphurous, smelling of lightning.
(William Faulkner, "As I Lay Dying")
- Now she hates me. I have taught her that, at least.
(William Faulkner, "Light in August")
- Father was teaching us that all men are just accumulations dolls stuffed with sawdust swept up from the trash heaps where all previous dolls had been thrown away the sawdust flowing from what wound in what side that not for me died not
(William Faulkner, "The Sound and the Fury")
- That's sad too, people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today
(William Faulkner, "The Sound and the Fury")
- When the switch fell I could feel it upon my flesh; when it welted and ridged it was my blood that ran, and I would think with each blow of the switch: Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever.
(William Faulkner, "As I Lay Dying")
- She has no mother because fatherblood hates with love and pride, but motherblood with hate loves and cohabits.
(William Faulkner, "Light in August")
- I am not one of those women who can stand things.
(William Faulkner, "The Sound and the Fury")
- The arrow increased without motion, then in a quick swirl the trout lipped a fly beneath the surface with that sort of gigantic delicacy of an elephant picking up a peanut.
(William Faulkner, "The Sound and the Fury")
- I, the dreamer clinging yet to the dream as the patient clings to the last thin unbearable ecstatic instant of agony in order to sharpen the savor of the pain's surcease, waking into the reality, the more than reality, not to the unchanged and unaltered old time but into a time altered to fit the dream which, conjunctive with the dreamer, becomes immolated and apotheosized
(William Faulkner, "Absalom, Absalom!")
- And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.
(William Faulkner, "Light in August")
- She is like all the rest of them. Whether they are seventeen or fortyseven, when they finally come to surrender completely, it's going to be in words.
(William Faulkner, "Light in August")
- I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine and tranquil upon tideflats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies hovering a long way off.
(William Faulkner, "The Sound and the Fury")
- The clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse of the decaying house itself, after a while it whirred and cleared its throat and struck six times.
(William Faulkner, "The Sound and the Fury")
- If happy I can be I will, if suffer I must I can.
(William Faulkner, "Absalom, Absalom!")
- And I reckon them that are good must suffer for it the same as them that are bad.
(William Faulkner, "Light in August")
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