1. “Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

An inner monologue delivered by Quentin Compson in "The Sound and The Fury", throughout his career, William Faulkner like to use time, and its cyclical nature as an image of continuity, and as a symbol for the American South's inability to forsake norms long past with the end if the Civil War. Interrogating the beliefs of 'The Lost Cause', and lamenting how it has impeded the concept of freedom in the former Confederate States, Faulkner contends we can only truly feel realized, and ourselves, the moment we forsake all innate fantasies we impose on ourselves to derive a sense of meaning. Only we can mean to ourselves, and in doing so, mean ourselves into meaning.

2. “The saddest thing about love, Joe, is that not only the love cannot last forever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten.”

Though Faulkner was hardly a romanticist, as much of his work including his first novel "Soldier's Pay" often made a habit of undercutting and dismantling fanciful narratives. By no means did this mean the author didn't believe in love. He did. Only that like all things in this world, and in this life, its value becomes cheapened with the passage of time. Passing until all there is to value is nothing.

3. “A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune”

Another line taken from "The Sound and The Fury", similar to how flaw is an inherent trait sown into mankind destined to manifest as instances unforeseen, Faulkner understood better than most that the same random cruelty lingered in the life we were placed in. Not always occurring as a direct result of our committed faults, despite leaving us with the fault.

5. “How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.”

Spoken through the inner monologue of Darl in "As I Lay Dying", Faulkner's long, illustrious writing career propelled him to great heights, and took him to many places but like many Southerners born with a mind, and into a place shrouded beneath the fantastic mist of nostalgia, Faulkner never forgot where he was from. No matter what you write, and where you end up living because of it, home's home.

5. "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past."

Though undoubted regarded as an outspoken cynic by many, beneath the tears numbering the words recounting the tragedy awaiting readers at the end of his stories, Faulkner very much remained a man of the highest, most resilient hope. Through the atrocities and the adversities that continue to linger to impede the progress of mankind, William Faulkner believed that the decency that resides in each of us would not only allow us to endure against such odds but would eventually allow us to conquer them.