All of us [writers] failed to match our dream of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. In my opinion, if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist. Thats why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he wont, which is why this condition is healthy. Once he did it, once he matched the work to the image, the dream, nothing would remain but to cut his throat, jump off the other side of that pinnacle of perfection into suicide. Im a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he cant, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.
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About William Faulkner
William Faulkner was a 19th-century American writer and novelist. William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Creativity — The spark of original thought, invention, and artistic vision