"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it"

William Faulkner’s line illustrates a profound aspect of the creative and reflective process: the act of writing as a means for discovering and shaping one’s own thoughts. Rather than simply serving as a vehicle for expressing pre-formed ideas, writing in this view becomes an active and participatory process in which thoughts are clarified, challenged, and often fully realized for the first time. The page or screen serves as a kind of mirror or laboratory where raw feelings and fragmented insights are laid out, examined, and rearranged into something coherent. Through the tactile engagement of word selection, sentence formation, and paragraph construction, a writer comes to understand their own position more deeply.

The quote suggests that thoughts are not always immediately accessible or knowable; instead, they often exist in a clouded, unarticulated state. Writing compels the mind to slow down, to give form and articulation to fuzzy emotions or vague reflections. The physical process of writing demands decisions, what to include, what to omit, how to order ideas, which in turn shapes the author’s perspective. As Faulkner alludes, self-knowledge and clarity are not prerequisites for writing but are often its results.

This perspective also relieves the anxiety of not having one’s ideas fully organized before starting to write. It validates the messiness of first drafts and the importance of revision. The blank page invites exploration, and the outcome is not just a piece of prose but a new understanding. For thinkers, artists, and anyone seeking clarity, Faulkner’s insight offers encouragement: it is through the wrestling with words and meanings that genuine understanding emerges. Writing transforms abstract and elusive impressions into concrete and manageable realities, revealing to the writer what they truly think and believe.