William Faulkner

Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature.

William Faulkner

So vast, so limitless in capacity is man’s imagination to disperse and burn away the rubble-dross of fact and probability, leaving only truth and dream.

William Faulkner

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means.

William Faulkner

The best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it’s the perfect milieu for an artist to work in.

William Faulkner

The books I read are the ones I knew and loved when I was a young man and to which I return as you do to old friends.

William Faulkner

The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

William Faulkner

The necessity of the idea creates its own style. The material itself dictates how it should be written.

William Faulkner

The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.

William Faulkner

The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.

William Faulkner

The poets are almost always wrong about the facts. That’s because they’re not interested in the facts, only the truth.

William Faulkner