William Faulkner Quotes

Let me say to begin with: It is not neurotic to have conflict ... Conflicts within ourselves are an integral part of human life.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again.

I was not fighting myself at all as I used to.

Those things interest me a lot in songwriting - the human nature of how people think, and the muck that we wind up in.

The literary story is a story that deals with the complicated human heart with an honest tolerance for the ambiguity in which we live. No good guys, no bad guys, just guys: that is, people bearing up in the crucible of their days and certainly not always - if ever - capable of articulating their condition.

There never was a war that was not inward.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves.

She was owner and captive, both, of a bitterly divided heart.

This overwhelming desire to be close to you directly conflicts with my intense fear of people.

The mind scolds the heart, which makes excuses and goes its own way.

In his deepest heart there surge tremendous shame and madness mixed with sorrow and love whipped on by frenzy and a courage aware of its own worth.

Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out," said the shopkeeper. "That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.

the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

[Neurotics are] torn by inner conflicts ... Every neurotic ... is at war with himself.

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep.

The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it... I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent.

Doing battle with themselves that way, every day, all the time and sometimes it sucks, but other times it results in people making sort of a dream comprehensible to someone else.

Men and women aren't really dogs: they only look like it and behave like it. Somewhere inside there is a great chagrin and a gnawing discontent.

Everybody’s at war with different things…I’m at war with my own heart sometimes.

Attempting to satisfy the passions that rage inside us and the longings that motivate us, we invent spirituality, lean on political solutions, create new villains, turn our backs on Jesus, and blame a thousand tyrannies- but we never come to terms with the source of the problem deep within the heart and inclination of every human being.

Where was my heart to flee for refuge from my heart? Whither was I to fly, where I would not follow? In what place should I not be prey to myself?

The battle would not take place in the mountains, valleys, or plains of Israel. It would take place in the wilderness of the human heart.

Man has always been his own most vexing problem.