William Faulkner on winning the Nobel Prize

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things."

William Faulkner at the banquet honoring his Nobel Prize in literature in 1949.