William Faulkner Quotes

History isn’t just what happened before we came on the scene. We are a part of history..

There is a palpable sense of history in the homes that I choose to occupy. I think that's one of the reasons I gravitate towards old homes: I really like that sense of history and that sense that I am one step in a very long process that trails out in both directions around me - before me and ahead of me.

I want to write for history, not for the moment.

I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us.

Things were here before you and will be here after you're gone. The geographic features, especially, give you a sense of your own place in the world and in time.

If your subjects are eternal... they'll survive.

The future has a lot to do with the past.

History didn't begin yesterday.

Things written, remain.

The more you read about history, the more you realize that there is nothing new under the sun.

World history is the world's court.

No generation can escape history.

History is a heavy thing everywhere.

I feel like history is about going and discovering the great human stories that just are every bit as relevant as anything that's going on today.

I think about Shakespeare. Because there have been hundreds of variations of Shakespeare's plays since they've been written, and I believe it's because they're important. They're still relevant today. 'Roots' is still relevant today. The idea that we shouldn't tell this story again is very strange to me.

Nothing is forever, but history is forever.

History doesn't have a curfew.

They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again.

We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being. -stage manager, in the play OUR TOWN

Historical! Must it be historical to catch your attention? Even though historicity, like notoriety, denotes nothing more than thatsomething has occurred.

History isn't through with me yet.

History is never antiquated, because humanity is always fundamentally the same.

Institutions do live on their history.

What's interesting to me, is a moving someone through time; in a way, history is part of my landscape. And it fascinates me that history can be so easily reflected in what happens today.

The past not merely is not fugitive, it remains present.