But it’s a shame, in a way. Folks seem to get away from the olden right teaching that says to drive the nails down and trim the edges well always like it was for your own use and comfort you were making it. It’s like some folks has the smooth, pretty boards to build a courthouse with and others dont have no more than rough lumber fitten to build a chicken coop. But it’s better to build a tight chicken coop than a shoddy courthouse, and when they both build shoddy or build well, neither because it’s one or tother is going to make a man feel the better nor the worse.

—Cash in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

that is, assuming you care about whether things tote and ride on a balance.


Now and then a fellow gets to thinking about it. Not often, though. Which is a good thing. For the Lord aimed for him to do and not to spend too much time thinking, because his brain it’s like a piece of machinery: it wont stand a whole lot of racking. It’s best when it all runs along the same, doing the day’s work and not one part used no more than needful. I have said and I say again, that’s ever living thing the matter with Darl: he just thinks by himself too much.

—William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying