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The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

Requiem for a Nun (1951) act 1

2

I believe man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he, alone among creatures, has an inexhaustible voice but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, 10 December 1950

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Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling.
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Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.
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A writer needs three things, experience, observation and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
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Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency … to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies.
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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.
1
The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don’t.
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William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi. Considered one of the greatest writers in 20th-century American literature, Faulkner is celebrated for his profound and often dark depictions of the American South. His work is dominated by the creation of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, where the stories of various families, their tragedies, and racial and social conflicts unfold. Faulkner is known for his innovative and experimental literary style, which includes the use of stream of consciousness, non-linear narratives, and multiple narrative voices, challenging readers to piece together events. Among his most acclaimed novels are "The Sound and the Fury" (1929), "Light in August" (1932), and "Absalom, Absalom!" (1936). He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949, in recognition of his "singular and unprecedented contribution to modern American fiction." Faulkner also won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for "A Fable" (1955). His exploration of human nature, the legacy of slavery, and the decay of the South has left an indelible mark on world literature. He passed away on July 6, 1962, in Byhalia, Mississippi.