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.
William FaulknerRead
Only the peak feels so sound and stable that the beginning of the falling is hidden for a little while.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the illusion of stability at the peak of success and the unseen decline that may follow.
William Faulkner's quote suggests that when one reaches a high point or peak in life, it often feels secure and steady. However, this perception can be deceiving, as the signs of decline or difficulty may not be immediately apparent. It implies a warning about the transient nature of success and the inevitability of change.
Themes
SuccessStabilityChangeIllusionDecline
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech, to highlight the importance of staying grounded even at the heights of success.
More from William Faulkner
All quotes βI feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.
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When 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...
William FaulknerRead
Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
William FaulknerRead
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.
William FaulknerRead
Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.
William FaulknerRead
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