William Faulkner

I never promise a woman anything nor let her know what I’m going to give her. That’s the only way to manage them. Always keep them guessing. If you cant think of any other way to surprise them, give them a bust in the jaw.

William Faulkner

I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10:00 o’clock every day.

William Faulkner

I prefer to think that no writer has got time to be too concerned with style, that he is simply telling this dramatic instance in the most effective way he knows, that the book, the story, creates its own style.

William Faulkner

I reckon that being good is about the easiest thing in the world for a lazy man.

William Faulkner

I say money has no value; it’s just the way you spend it.

William Faulkner

I was wrong. I admit it. I believed that there were things which still mattered just because they had mattered once. But I was wrong. Nothing matters but breath, breathing, to know and to be alive.

William Faulkner

I’d have to listen to somebody – artist or shoe clerk. And the artist is more entertaining because he knows less about what he is trying to do.

William Faulkner

I’d have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.

William Faulkner

I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

William Faulkner

Idleness breeds our better virtues.

William Faulkner