As I Lay Dying Quotes

Context

This famous line is from As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.

No, this was not written by Dr. Seuss. There's no red fish or blue fish involved. Not unless you're really reading into things.

The line is, however, spoken by a character roughly the age of one of Dr. Seuss' readers—Vardaman Bundren, who narrates Chapter 19 with nothing more than these five words. Yup… the entire chapter is five words long. Somebody really wanted an impressive-looking Table of Contents, eh?

Poor little Vardaman is having a bit of an existential crisis. He’s not even old enough to ride the big rollercoasters at Six Flags Yoknapatawpha (note: not a real place), and his mom has just died. 

 Understandably, he’s new to the whole concept of death, and he doesn’t know how to process the experience of his mother being there with them one day, then not there the next. The closest he can get is by equating his mother to a fish—more specifically, the fish he caught earlier in the novel and was told to clean himself. 

 A few chapters before this famous line, he talks about the fish being a “fish” when it was swimming around in the water and then a “not-fish” when it was served up for dinner. Interpreting death or the way a soul transitions from one world to the next through that lens is actually a pretty profound idea for a kid to grapple with all on his own, whether he realizes it or not. Just keep swimming, Vardaman—and maybe see a therapist someday about your childhood trauma.

Where you've heard it

If you've got a history of mermaid-itis in your family line, you may have heard someone say it at Thanksgiving dinner one year. But as long as your bloodline is 100% human, chances are good that you've never actually heard this sentence spoken aloud.

You can see plenty more of the World's Shortest Chapter on Tumblr, and maybe you can get your hands on a copy of this film, which (nearly exactly) borrowed the quote for its title. It's not on Netflix or Hulu, though, so good luck.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

There's really no way to drop this Faulkner bomb into a conversation without sounding super pretentious. It's like an inside joke among the most well-read intellectuals. So tread carefully.