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
Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Words can often be meaningless or misleading, leading to misunderstandings.
In this quote, William Faulkner reflects on the futility and disappointment that can come from excessive talk without meaningful action or substance. It highlights the idea that words alone, especially when hollow or insincere, can lead to frustration and heartbreak, suggesting that actions speak louder than words.
Themes
WordsStupidityCommunicationActionsMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote during a discussion about the importance of authentic communication in relationships.
More from William Faulkner
All quotes βI feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.
William FaulknerRead
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
Similar quotes
Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective. So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle everyday? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything anther than galloping neurosis?
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance
Albert EinsteinRead
No one wants to hear everything that's in your head. They just want you to live up to what comes out of your mouth.
Adam GrantRead
Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.
Terry PratchettRead
There is no creation without faith and hope. There is no faith and hope that does not express itself in creation.
Thornton WilderRead
Be yourself. The world worships the original.
Ingrid BergmanRead