Quotes by William Faulkner

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, It moves again since it is life.  Since man is mortal, the only immotality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move.  This is the artists way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.

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

I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.

"Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.
Try to be better than yourself.

"Memory believes
before knowing remembers.
Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing wonders."

The last sound on the worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a homemade spaceship and already quarreling about where they are going next.

The reason for living is to stay dead a long time

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have time to read reviews.

Unless you're ashamed of yourself now and then, you're not honest.

We have to start teaching ourselves not to be afraid.