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William Faulkner
2 free books by William Faulkner. 1 you can read right here.
Born 1897 in New Albany · Died 1962 in Byhalia
writer, novelist, poet, playwright, screenwriter · United States · associated with modernist literature
Notable works: The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, A Rose for Emily
Facts from Wikidata (Q38392), retrieved 2026-09-26.
- The Sound and the Furycourse edition cited: 1991 · Read here → · Assigned in 1 MIT course
- As I Lay Dying1930 public-domain edition · 1930 · Read at en.wikisource.org ↗
Quotes from William Faulkner’s books
Verified word for word in the text: each quote is copied exactly from the book’s text in this site’s reader (the Project Gutenberg e-text named under each book) and links to its passage; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against that text. How RedLectern is built.
The Sound and the Fury
From Project Gutenberg e-text #75170 (public domain in the USA).
Caddy smelled like trees.
It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said, Quentin, I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excrutiating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s.
Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought.
The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
Caddy was all wet and muddy behind, and I started to cry and she came and squatted in the water.
“Hush now.” she said. “I’m not going to run away.” So I hushed. Caddy smelled like trees in the rain.
Then Ben wailed again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound.
I saw them. Then I saw Caddy, with flowers in her hair, and a long veil like shining wind. Caddy Caddy