1. “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.”
2. “I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire… 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 of your breath trying to conquer it.”
3. “Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”
4. “They are gone and I am free.”
5. “All of us are cruel, but some of us are cruel to ourselves.”
Book Summary:
“The Sound and the Fury” is a novel by William Faulkner that was first published in 1929. The story is told through the perspectives of four different characters: Benjy, Quentin, Jason, and Dilsey.
The novel is set in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi, and follows the decline of the Compson family, a once-prominent Southern family. The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjy, a mentally disabled man who is unable to comprehend the passage of time. His section is characterized by a stream-of-consciousness style, with disjointed fragments of memories and impressions.
The second section of the novel is narrated by Quentin, the eldest Compson son, who is consumed by guilt and obsession over his sister Caddy’s promiscuity. Quentin’s section is marked by his circular and fragmented thoughts as he attempts to come to terms with his family’s disintegration.
The third section of the novel is narrated by Jason, the youngest Compson son, who is bitter and resentful towards his family. He is consumed by a desire for money and power, which leads him to commit cruel and manipulative acts.
The final section of the novel is narrated by Dilsey, the Compson family’s black servant. Her section offers a glimpse into the lives of the black community in the South during the early 20th century, and she is portrayed as a strong and resilient character who is able to persevere in the face of adversity.
Throughout the novel, the Compson family’s decline is linked to the changing social and economic conditions of the South, as well as the individual failings of the family members. The novel is renowned for its innovative narrative techniques, including the use of stream-of-consciousness narration and non-linear storytelling, as well as its exploration of themes such as time, memory, and the loss of innocence.
6. “I hope and pray I shall never be that desperate. Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you’ll always find despair.”
7. “It’s just that I’m not like other people, I guess. I always was a kind of a dub.”
8. “It’s not when you realize that nothing can help you – religion, pride, anything – it’s when you realize that you don’t need any aid.”
9. “I could just remember how my father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”
10. “The reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”
11. “So the shadow became alive and walked, and the two of them went up toward the darkening country, the iron-stinking shadow and the threadbare man. For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a panorama of the years behind him, years in which he had been happy and had not known it, moments of ecstasy…and he was bitter with the years behind him and he was sick with hatred for the years before him, for the years he would have to live.”
12. “No battle is ever won… 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.”
13. “For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance.”
14. “I am not a beast. I don’t want to hear you call me a beast. I’m a man.”
15. “I never wanted anything but love. I never got it. When I was a boy, other boys hated me because I wouldn’t fight. They laughed at me and hated me. I wanted you. I envied you your lovers. I wanted to have you to go to. I never had a woman.”
16. “It seems like a woman’s worst enemy is another woman.”
17. “Because once you have reached forty, you can’t do anything, you can’t go anywhere, you can’t learn anything, you’re just… finished, washed up.”
18. “He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn’t need a word for that anymore than for pride.
19. “I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciating-ly apt that you should be sitting here beside me in the dark, listening to the old year dying with strains of the forties music in the air. It is so appropriate. It has the perfect ending.”
20. “Only when the clock stops does time come to life.”
21. “To be a Virginian either by Birth, Marriage, Adoption, or even on one’s Mother’s side is an introduction to any state in the Union, a passport to any foreign country, and a benediction from the Almighty God.”
22. “The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.”
23. “Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”
24. “There was a time when I could have had any man on a plate, if that was all I wanted. But he’s the only one I ever wanted and the only one I never had.”
25. “They are not the sound and the fury, they are my mother’s eyes looking at me for the last time.”