An open book has aged, crumbling pages on the left and clean blank pages on the right against a cream background.

Original artwork, not a still

Requiem for a Nun • 1951

William Faulkner

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker says the past does not stay behind us: it remains alive and continues to shape the present. What has happened cannot be filed away as finished, because its effects still reach into today and are never truly over.

Context reviewed

Share this quote