Daily Inspiration Quote by William Faulkner

Faulkner’s jab lands on a very American temptation: turning art into a leaderboard. “Better than your contemporaries or predecessors” names the shallow sport of reputation-making, the anxious habit of writing (or living) with one eye on rivals and the other on the dead. In a culture that loves prizes, lists, and literary horse races, he refuses the premise. Competing against “them” is easy because “them” is abstract; you can cherry-pick your opponents, invent a narrative of superiority, and call it ambition.

“Try to be better than yourself” reroutes the whole enterprise inward, where the contest gets uglier and more honest. The subtext is craft over clout: your only meaningful benchmark is yesterday’s work, yesterday’s cowardice, yesterday’s shortcuts. It’s also a warning about envy as an artistic method. Measuring yourself against peers invites imitation, trend-chasing, and reactive writing. Measuring yourself against yourself demands risk, revision, and the willingness to fail in public until you find the sentence that’s actually yours.

The line fits Faulkner’s moment: a Southern modernist writing under the long shadow of the canon while trying to invent new forms for old ghosts. He didn’t just want to “beat” Hemingway or outshine Joyce; he wanted to outgrow the version of Faulkner who could only tell neat stories. Read that way, the quote is less self-help than strategy: stop writing to win arguments, start writing to expand your range. That’s how you make work that lasts past the season’s applause.