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1 " ingenuity was apparently given man in order that he may supply himself in crises with shapes and sounds with which to guard himself from truth. "
― William Faulkner , Light in August
2 " And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie. "
3 " Time, the spaces of light and dark, had long since lost orderliness. "
4 " It does not take long. Soon the fine galloping language, the gutless swooning full of sapless trees and dehydrated lusts begins to swim smooth and swift and peaceful. It is better than praying without having to bother to think aloud. It is like listening in a cathedral to a eunuch chanting in a language which he does not even need to not understand. "
5 " 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. "
6 " Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too. "
7 " Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. "
8 " Memory believes before knowing remembers.[Light in August] "
9 " It is a happy faculty of the mind to slough that which conscience refuses to assimilate. "
10 " I know now that what makes a fool is an inability to take even his own good advice. "
11 " When it's a matter of not-do, I reckon a man can trust himself for advice. But when it comes to a matter of doing, I reckon a fellow had better listen to all the advice he can get. "
12 " It is the man who all his life has been self-convicted of veracity whose lies find quickest credence. "
13 " I mind how I said to you once that there is a price for being good the same as for being bad; a cost to pay. And it's the good men that cant deny the bill when it comes around. They cant deny it for the reason that there aint any way to make them pay it, like a honest man that gambles. The bad men can deny it; that's why dont anybody expect them to pay on sight or any other time. But the good cant. Maybe it takes longer to pay for being good than for being bad. "
14 " And so sometimes I would think how the devil had conquered God. "
15 " But something held him, as the fatalist can always be held: by curiosity, pessimism, by sheer inertia. "
16 " And I reckon them that are good must suffer for it the same as them that are bad. "
17 " Here I am I am tired I am tired of running of having to carry my life like it was a basket of eggs "
18 " Now she hates me. I have taught her that, at least. "
19 " Dear God, let me be damned a little longer, a little while. "
20 " a fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he's already got. He'll cling to trouble he's used to before he'll risk a change. Yes. A man will talk about how he'd like to escape from living folks. But it's the dead folks that do him the damage. It's the dead ones that lay quiet in one place and dont try to hold him, that he cant escape from. "
