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
War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that regardless of one's financial state, people will always prioritize war and alcohol.
William Faulkner's quote reflects on the human tendency to invest in destructive behaviors, such as war, and self-destructive habits, such as drinking. It implies that even in times of hardship, individuals find ways to engage in these activities, highlighting a paradoxical aspect of human nature where significant values are placed on violence and escapism.
Themes
WarDrinkPovertyHuman NatureDestructive Behaviors
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the impact of war on society in a classroom setting.
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...
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Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
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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.
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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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