William Faulkner citáty

strana 5

„Nikdy se nebojte zvýšit svůj hlas pro poctivost, pravdu a soucit proti nespravedlnosti, lhaní a chamtivosti. Pokud by to lidé po celém světě dělali, změnilo by to Zemi.“

„Možná měli pravdu, když vkládali lásku do knih. Možná by nemohla žít nikde jinde.“

„Jak často jsem lehávala v dešti na jakési podivné střeše a myslela na domov.“

„Jsem špatný a půjdu do pekla a je mi to jedno. Raději budu v pekle než kdekoli, kde jsi ty.“

„Vždy sněte a střílejte výš než víte, že můžete. Nesnažte se být lepší než vaši současníci nebo vaši předkové. Snažte se být lepší než vy sami.“

„Lidé mají děti, aby jejich prostřednictvím napravili své chyby, které nadělali.“

„Nic tak neoslabuje charakter člověka jako myšlenka, že najde životní štěstí v něčem jiném než ve vlastní práci.“

„Na špatné lidi je možné se spolehnout. Přinejmenším se totiž nemění.“

„Chceme-li získat lidi, musíme je považovat za takové, za jaké se sami považují.“

„Na špatné lidi se můžeme spolehnout. Ti se aspoň nemění.“

„Spisovatel je slavný až tehdy, když ho víc citují, než čtou.“

„Sláva je jako žena - bude ti věrná, když s ní budeš zacházet s velkou dávkou lhostejnosti.“

„Věřím v Boha, Bože. Bože, věřím v Boha.“

„Někteří se stanou odvážnými až tehdy, když už nemají jiné východisko.“

„Nikdy nepoužil slovo, kvůli kterému by čtenář musel zalistovat ve slovníku.“

„Pokud je ve vás příběh, musí vyjít.“

„Muž, který odstraní horu, začíná odnášením malých kamenů.“

„Jednoho dne se ožení a na krátkou chvíli budou prožívat tu krátkou, neskutečnou blaženost, která sama v sobě nese svou pomíjivost, a proč se tudíž radovat. A uchovají si, snad si na ni dokonce uchovají vzpomínky do doby, kdy tělo už nemá tělu co říci, protože alespoň paměť trvá.“

„Srdce je nestálé. Jak jinak by mohlo udržovat v člověku život.“

„Kdo shromažďuje uschlou růži?“

„Vylévání alkoholu je jako pálení knih.“

„A nebyl dost starý na to, aby promluvil a zároveň neřekl nic.“

„Gentleman přijímá odpovědnost za své činy a nese břemeno jejich důsledků.“

„Jistě, dokonce i čekání skončí... pokud vydržíte dostatečně dlouho čekat.“

„Chceme být volní ne proto, že vyžadujeme svobodu, ale proto, že ji praktikujeme.“

„Pokud bych si mohl vybrat mezi bolestivou zkušeností a ničím, vybral bych si bolest.“

„Když se příště pokusíte někoho svést, nedělejte to slovy. Ženy vědí o slovech více než muži. A vědí, jak málo mohou někdy znamenat.“

„Cítím se jako mokrý zárodek divočiny v horké slepé zemi.“

„Při psaní musíte zabít všechny své miláčky.“

„Nebuďte "spisovatelem". Jen pište.“

“The sun, an hour above the horizon, is poised like a bloody egg upon a crest of thunderheads; the light has turned copper: in the eye portentous, in the nose sulphurous, smelling of lightning.”

“It's because I'm alone.. If I could just feel it, it would be different, because I would not be alone. But if I were not alone, everybody would know it. And he could do so much for me, and then I would not be alone. Then I could be all right alone.”

“Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”

“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.”

“There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty; then he’s a damn fool if he doesn’t.”

“It was like something you have dreaded and feared and dodged for years until it seemed like all your life, then despite everything it happened to you and all it was was just pain, all it did was hurt and so it was all over, all finished, all right.”

“Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too.”

“And he was not old enough to talk and say nothing at the same time.”

“Like a fellow running from or toward a gun ain't got time to worry whether the word for what he is doing is courage or cowardice.”

“Knowing not grieving remembers a thousand savage and lonely streets.”

“Did you ever have a sister? did you?”

“There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need.”

“I believe in God, God. God, I believe in God.”

“One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”

“There is no such thing as was—only is. If was existed, there would be no grief or sorrow.”

“… how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.”

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

“The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.”

“We shall not kill and maybe next time we even won't.”

“I would say that music is the easiest means in which to express, but since words are my talent, I must try to express clumsily in words what the pure music would have done better.”

“An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn’t
know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder
why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or
steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.”

“When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow.”

“That’s what they mean by the womb of time: the agony and the despair of spreading bones, the hard girdle in which lie the outraged entrails of events.”

“Who gathers the withered rose?”

“… surely there is something in madness, even the demoniac, which Satan flees, aghast at his own handiwork, and which God looks on in pity..”

“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.”

“You men,' she says. 'You durn men.”

“Man must have light. He must live in the fierce full constant glare of light, where all shadow will be defined and sharp and unique and personal: the shadow of his own singular rectitude or baseness. All human evils have to come out of obscurity and darkness, where there is nothing to dog man constantly with the shape of his own deformity.”

“Art is not concerned with environment either; it doesn't care where it is … the best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it’s the perfect milieu for an artist to work in.”