These two men, seemingly so different in their public attitudes--Faulkner hugged his private life, Hemingway made his into a natio...nal epic--responded similarly to inner needs. Self-destructive drinking was a phenomenon common to many American writers besides Hemingway and Faulkner; their commonality went far deeper. Both needed confusion, near disaster, and a reaching for depths before they became pumped up for work. Hemingway by the 1930s had put most of his best work behind him. He developed and peaked well before Faulkner, and the body of his achievement is far smaller as a result, although his influence was larger. Hemingway's turbulence was exhibited on a public scale. By comparison, Faulkner's turmoil was almost invis ible, except to family members and friends near him. He demanded his privacy with the obsession of a man who feared to give away anything which was not in his books. But because his resources were kept so close to his chest, so dammed up inside, he was more suitable for the long haul. He could incubate ideas, techniques, and energies without dissipating them in a great public display. And he could move at his own rate of development.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No matter what disaster occurred She stood in desperate music wound... Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph Where the bales and the baskets lay No common intelligible sound But sang, "O sea-starved hungry sea."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One thing is plain for all men of common sense and common conscience, that here, here in America, is the home of man. After all th...e deductions which are to be made of for our pitiful politics, which stake every gravest national question on the silly die, whether James or whether Jonathan shall sit in the chair and hold the purse; after all the deduction is made for our frivolities and insanities, there still remains an organic simplicity and liberty, which, when it loses its balance, redresses itself presently, which offers opportunity to the human mind not known in any other region.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To stand on common ground here and there gritty with pebbles... yet elsewhere 'fine and mellow-- uncommon fine for ploughing' there to labor planting the vegetable wordsLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over..., but frequently neglect to gather up experiences as we go.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No one lives in this room without confronting the whiteness of the wall... behind the poems, planks of books, photographs of dead heroines. Without contemplating last and late the true nature of poetry. The drive to connect. The dream of a common language.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to ta...ke a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand idly by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »