– Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.

As any decent Southern gentleman should, William Faulkner often celebrated his birthday with liquor, women, and literature. Today, in honor of his birthday, we’ll do the same. Cheers, Faulkner.

“I don’t give a hoot what the writing’s like, I write any sort of rubbish which will cover the main outlines of the story, then I can begin to see it. When I write, when I draft a story, I never think of writing nice sentences about, “It was a nice August evening when Elizabeth Jane Moriarty was coming down the road.” I just write roughly what happened, and then I’m able to see what the construction looks like. It’s the design of the story that to me is most important, the thing that tells you there’s a bad gap in the narrative here and you really ought to fill that up in some way or another. I’m always looking at the design of a story, not the treatment.” — From an interview with the Paris Review

“At times, when I am ‘down,’ I am able to pump myself up again by thinking about my blood. It is blue, the bluest this fading world has known probably. At times I startle myself with a gesture so royal, so full of light, that I wonder where it comes from. It comes from my father, Paul XVII, a most kingly man and personage. Even though his sole accomplishment during his lack of reign was the de-deification of his own person.” — from Royal Blood