William Faulkner, a Nobel Prize-winning American writer, is celebrated for his profound insights into human nature, time, and the complexities of life. His words continue to inspire readers worldwide with their depth and timeless relevance. This article presents over 90 of his most powerful and inspirational quotes, offering a window into his unique perspective. Whether you seek motivation, reflection, or a fresh outlook, these quotes serve as a beacon of thought and encouragement.

90+ William Faulkner Inspirational Quotes You Can’t Miss

1. “Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.”

2. “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”

3. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

4. “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.”

5. “Don’t be ‘a writer’. Be writing.”

6. “Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”

7. “If a story is in you, it has to come out.”

8. “Wonder. Go on and wonder.”

9. “You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.”

10. “Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.”

11. “Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”

12. “There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others.”

13. “A man is the sum of his misfortunes.”

14. “Unless you’re ashamed of yourself now and then, you’re not honest.”

15. “Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

16. “People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”

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

18. “It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That’s how the world is going to end.”

19. “The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it.”

20. “Sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had.”

21. “Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid.”

22. “A gentleman can live through anything.”

23. “I decline to accept the end of man.”

24. “Maybe the only thing worse than having to give gratitude constantly is having to accept it.”

25. “It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless…”

26. “Even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as an honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.”

27. “You see, if I could believe that I shall see and touch him again, I shall not have lost him.”

28. “Between grief and nothing I will take grief.”

29. “How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof thinking of home.”

30. “Poor man. Poor mankind.”

31. “For the holy are susceptible too to evil, even as you and I.”

32. “…ingenuity was apparently given man in order that he may supply himself in crisis with shapes and sounds with which to guard himself from truth.”

33. “So vast, so limitless in capacity is man’s imagination to disperse and burn away the rubble-dross of fact and probability.”

34. “Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death.”

35. “Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique.”

36. “Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error.”

37. “The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice.”

38. “He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.”

39. “You get born and you try this and you don’t know why, only you keep on trying it.”

40. “You are born at the same time with a lot of other people, all mixed up with them.”

41. “The strings are all hitched to all the other arms and legs and the others all trying and they don’t know why either.”

42. “Because no battle is ever won. They are not even fought.”

43. “The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair.”

44. “Victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

45. “It is the writer’s privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.”

46. “I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue.”

47. “Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.”

48. “The reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”

49. “Any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man is very much better than any other.”

50. “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”

51. “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

52. “Tell about the South. What’s it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there.”

53. “Well, between Scotch and nothin’, I suppose I’d take Scotch.”

54. “A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.”

55. “Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.”

56. “Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.”

57. “Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”

58. “Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.”

59. “If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.”

60. “We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”

61. “I’m bad and I’m going to hell, and I don’t care.”

62. “I’d rather be in hell than anywhere where you are.”

63. “I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.”

64. “Love doesn’t die; the men and women do.”

65. “The saddest thing about love is that not only the love cannot last forever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten.”

66. “War is an episode, a crisis, a fever the purpose of which is to rid the body of fever.”

67. “The phenomenon of war is its hermaphroditism: the principles of victory and of defeat inhabit the same body.”

68. “The hard girdle in which lie the outraged entrails of events.”

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

70. “I’d have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people is to take them for what they think they are.”

71. “Pouring out liquor is like burning books.”

72. “The books I read are the ones I knew and loved when I was a young man.”

73. “Memory believes longer than knowing even wonders.”

74. “You don’t love for the virtues, but despite the faults.”

75. “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”

76. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

77. “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.”

78. “Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.”

79. “Try to be better than yourself.”

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

81. “Because no battle is ever won, they are not even fought.”

82. “The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair.”

83. “Victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

84. “It is the writer’s privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.”

85. “I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue.”

86. “Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.”

87. “The reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”

88. “Any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man is very much better than any other.”

89. “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”

90. “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

91. “Tell about the South. What’s it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there.”

92. “Well, between Scotch and nothin’, I suppose I’d take Scotch.”

93. “A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.”

Conclusion

William Faulkner’s quotes encapsulate the struggles, hopes, and truths of the human experience. His words challenge us to face reality with courage, to dream beyond limits, and to embrace the complexities of life with honesty. These inspirational sayings invite reflection and motivate us to pursue our own paths with resilience and integrity.

Let these timeless words guide you in your journey, reminding you that the past shapes us, but it does not define us, and that the courage to dream and speak truth can change the world.