Skip to content

When I was a young writer there had been a stage where Camus, almost more than any other contemporary literary figure, radically set the tone for my own view of life and history.

— William Styron Darkness Visible (1990)

Another quote →

More quotes by William Styron

It could be all unwittingly that I wrote in Darkness Visible what amounted to a Rosetta stone for my other work.

Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz.

Sophie's Choice (1979)

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.

Writers at Work (1958)

Surely mankind has yet to be born. Surely this is true!

The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.

All William Styron quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Styron (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.