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
Yes sir. You can be more careless, you can put more trash in [a novel] and be excused for it. In a short story that's next to the poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can't. I mean by that the good short stories like Chekhov wrote. That's why I rate that second - it's because it demands a nearer absolute exactitude. You have less room to be slovenly and careless. There's less room in it for trash.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Short stories require precise language and structure, while novels allow for more flexibility.
William Faulkner emphasizes the significance of brevity and precision in short stories compared to novels. He highlights that due to the limited space in a short story, every word must be chosen with care, demanding a higher level of craftsmanship and artistry. In contrast, novels provide more leeway for less careful writing, as they have a wider scope for storytelling.
Themes
Short StoryNovelPrecisionWritingCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, I might use this quote to discuss the importance of word choice in short stories.
More from William Faulkner
All quotes →I 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
When I first began choreographing, I never thought of it as choreography but as expressing feelings. Though every piece is different, they are all trying to get at certain things that are difficult to put into words. In the work, everything belongs to everything else - the music, the set, the movement and whatever is said.
Pina BauschRead
My Advice to Young Filmmakers is This: Don't Follow Trends. Start Them!
Frank CapraRead
I kept thinking about how ironic it is how people who live in places where there is diversity tend to love it - and the people that don't live in particularly diverse places tend to be the ones attacking it. In a way, that's similar to music, which is essentially the art of bringing things together.
Kamasi WashingtonRead
Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering Drowning life and your effort to save yourself, Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil, Looking for something to give.
Ted HughesRead
Any film that supports the idea that things can be changed is a great film in my eyes.
Wim WendersRead
When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.
Joan MiroRead