# William Faulkner - Quotes: 71 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner ## Books - [Absalom, Absalom!](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/absalom-absalom.md) — 6 quotes - [As I Lay Dying](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/as-i-lay-dying.md) — 12 quotes - [Go Down, Moses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/go-down-moses.md) — 12 quotes - [Intruder in the Dust](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/intruder-in-the-dust.md) — 2 quotes - [Light in August](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/light-in-august.md) — 6 quotes - [Requiem for a Nun](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/requiem-for-a-nun.md) — 3 quotes - [The Hamlet](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-hamlet.md) — 1 quote - [The Mansion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-mansion.md) — 8 quotes - [The Reivers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-reivers.md) — 2 quotes - [The Sound and the Fury](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-sound-and-the-fury.md) — 8 quotes - [The Town](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-town.md) — 11 quotes ## Recently added quotes > When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it, which is not innocence but appetite; his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it, which is not ignorance but size. But Boon didn't know this. He must seduce me. And he had so little time: only from the time the train left until dark. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-reivers/when-grown-people.md) > A gentleman can live through anything. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-reivers/a-gentleman-can.md) > ... innocence is innocent not because it rejects but because it accepts; is innocent not because it is impervious and invulnerable to everything, but because it is capable of accepting anything and still remaining innocent; innocent because it foreknows all and therefore doesn't have to fear or be afraid. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-town/innocence-is-innocent.md) > "You don't know very much about women, do you?" she said. "Women aren't interested in poets' dreams. They are interested in facts. It doesn't even matter whether the facts are true or not, as long as they match the other facts without leaving a rough seam." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-town/you-dont-know.md) > Save us, Christ, the poor sons of bitches. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-mansion/save-us-christ.md) > 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. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-mansion/man-must-have.md) > The poets are wrong of course. ... But then poets are almost always wrong about facts. That's because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-town/the-poets-are.md) > She wanted to tell me. Maybe she even tried. But she couldn't. It wasn't because I was only twelve. It was because I was her child, created by her and Father because they wanted to be in bed together and nothing else would do, nobody else would do. You see? ... Because to the child, he was not created by his mother's and his father's passion or capacity for it. He couldn't have been because he was there first, he came first, before the passion; he created the passion, not only it but the man and the woman who served it; his father is not his father but his son-in-law, his mother not his mother but his daughter-in-law if he is a girl. ... and if a boy or a girl really is his father's and her mother's father-in-law or mother-in-law, which would make the girl her brother's mother no matter how much younger she was, then a girl with just one brother and him a twin at that, would maybe be his wife and mother too. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-town/she-wanted-to-tell.md) > Or maybe married men dont even need reasons, being as they already got wives. Or maybe it's women that dont need reasons, for the simple reason that they never heard of a reason and wouldn't recognise it face to face, since they dont function from reasons but from necessities that couldn't nobody help nohow and that dont nobody but a fool man want to help in the second place, because he dont know no better; it aint women, it's men that takes ignorance seriously, getting into a skeer [scare] over something for no more reason than that they dont happen to know what it is. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-mansion/or-maybe-married.md) > ... so vast, so limitless in capacity is man's imagination to disperse and burn away the rubble-dross of fact and probability, leaving only truth and dream. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/requiem-for-a-nun/so-vast-so-limitless.md) > Because as a rule women dont really care about facts just so they fit; it's just men that dont give a damn whether they fit or not. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/the-town/because-as-a-rule.md) > The past is never dead. It's not even past. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-faulkner/requiem-for-a-nun/the-past-is-never.md)