Since I posted my rant about the The Sound and The Fury last week, I thought I’d take a look at my favorite lines and quotes from the book this week, in my traditional end-of-the-novel moment of celebration.
“I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.”
“Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”
“Father said a man is the sum of his misfortunes.”
“ ‘I make it a point never to speak harshly of females,” Shreve said, “but that woman has got more ways like a bitch than any lady in these sovereign states and dominions.’ ”
“They talked all at once, their voices insistent and contradictory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires become words.”
“After all, like I say money has no value; it’s just the way you spend it.”
“When a man get it in his head that he’s got to tell something on you for your own good, goodnight.”
“ ‘But as long as I am buying food for people younger that I am, they’ll have to come down to the table to eat it.’ ”
“But he bellowed slowly, abjectly, without tears; the grave hopeless sound of all voiceless misery under the sun.
“burning each bridge vocally behind him before he had even reached the place to build the next one”
“he could not remember his sister but only the loss of her”
I really did enjoy Faulkner’s descriptive language and wit throughout the novel.
On to Catch-22 – Keep Reading!
Heather Paquette 