Thursday, December 4, 2014

William Faulkner on universities

William Faulkner, when asked if he thought it wonderful that a course on his work was to be offered at Harvard:

“I don’t know anything about universities. I ain’t surprised at anything they do.”
Quoted in Joseph Blotner’s Faulkner: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1974).

comments: 2

Geo-B said...

Of course, Faulkner lived in Oxford, Mississippi, in the shadow of the University of Mississippi and attended for some time, and was also writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia, for some time. So maybe he's being a tad colorful in this quote.

Michael Leddy said...

Yes, no doubt he’s playing the naïf.