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"In writing, you must kill all your darlings."
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"You spill a lot of beans in historical fiction. Crime fiction is about spilling no beans at all. You spill the least beans you possibly can. So because I had already written historical fiction before I was really good at the spilling beans section, but the new skill I had to learn when I was writing Brighton Belle was difficult. I had to avoid the equivalent of shouting, "this character's a murderer! Look who did it!."

"Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me."

"We write, edit, and rewrite the story of our own life employing descriptive words, metaphors, and symbols. Our lives are full of symbols including those supplied by nature and religion, which touch upon the mystical and spiritual aspects of life. Symbols inspire enduring hope by formulating idealist expectations."

"Writers aren't exactly people, they're a bunch of people trying to be one person."

"Don't go overboard in avoiding "said. Basically, "said is the default for dialogue, and a good thing, too; it's an invisible word that doesn't draw attention to itself."
Explore more quotes by William Faulkner


"I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from."


"She was bored. She loved, had capacity to love, for love, to give and accept love. Only she tried twice and failed twice to find somebody not just strong enough to deserve it, earn it, match it, but even brave enough to accept it."


"I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it -- you can't teach it."


"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."


"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth."


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


"Here I am I am tired I am tired of running of having to carry my life like it was a basket of eggs."
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