I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.
When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there's no holding me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote humorously reflects on the effects of alcohol, suggesting that it can artificially enhance one's confidence and perception of self.
William Faulkner's quote humorously illustrates the experience many have with alcohol, where the first drink can instill a sense of confidence and empowerment. As one drinks more, this effect can amplify, leading to a state of exaggerated self-belief, yet as the number of drinks increases, it often results in a loss of control and clarity. This lighthearted observation captures the paradox of seeking confidence through substances, blending humor with a cautionary insight into indulgence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used during a toast at a gathering to lighten the mood.
More from William Faulkner
All quotes βWhen grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it...his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it...
Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
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 any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.
Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.
Similar quotes
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
I am not funny. The writers were funny. My directors were funny. The situations were funny⦠What I am is brave. I have never been scared. Not when I did movies, certainly not when I was a model and not when I did I Love Lucy.
Their talk was endless, compulsive, and indulgent, sometimes sounding like the remains of the English language after having been hashed over by nuclear war survivors for a few hundred years.
I am remarkably likeable. Few people have ever been as likeable as I am. There is, frankly, no end to my likeability. People gather together in public assemblies to discuss how much they like me. I have several awards, and a small medal from a small country in South America which pays tribute both to how much I am liked and my general all around wonderfulness. I don't have it on me, of course. I keep my medals in my sock drawer.
I get up every morning and read the obituary column. If my name's not there, I eat breakfast.
I never thought I was funny. I don't THINK funny.