[T]he young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing becaus… - William Faulkner

The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself

A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.

the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

[A writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.

...the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

A veces yo conseguía dormirme repitiéndolo una y otra vez hasta que se mezclaba con las madreselvas todo terminó por simbolizar la noche y el desasosiego no me parecía estar despierto ni dormido mirando hacia un largo pasillo de media luz grisácea donde todas las cosas estables se habían convertido en paradójicas sombras todo cuanto yo había hecho sombras todo cuanto yo había sufrido tomando formas visibles grotescas y burlándose con su inherente irrelevancia de la significación que deberían haber afirmado pensando era yo no era yo quién no era no era quién.

I was wrong. I admit it. I believed that there were things which still mattered just because they had mattered once. But I was wrong. Nothing matters but breath, breathing, to know and to be alive.

I reckon that being good is about the easiest thing in the world for a lazy man.