Interviewer: Is there any possible formula to follow in order to be a good novelist?
Faulkner: Ninety-nine per cent talent . . . 99 per cent discipline . . . 99 per cent work. He must never be satisfied with what he does. It never is as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.
Interviewer: Do you mean the writer should be completely ruthless?
Faulkner: The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies.
In what ways must we be "ruthless" for our art? I know when I was teaching I had nothing in me to give at the end of the day for my writing. I became content to watch my students learn and advance and create while I stood at the sidelines, cheering them on. Although my "only responsibility" cannot be solely to my art, I will know no peace until my book is written.
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